Welcome to Forecast.Solar
Restful API for solar production forecast data and weather forecast data.
powered among others by PVGIS, OpenCage, Weather Api, OpenWeather, and Wunderground.
Currently serving valid locations with planes and MWp.
Served requests with a harmonic mean of ms in the last 24 hours.
Features
location, the declination and orientation of your solar panels
Solar production
(All plans)
The always weather based solar production forecast, historic averages and clear sky optimum provides watt powers and kilo watt energy data.Weather
(Professional account upwards)
The weather forecast provide sky coverage amount, textual weather condition and icon URL, temperature and some wind information.Time windows
(Professional account upwards)
If you have controllable loads, you can use this route to determine time windows in which switching processes can be automated based on the forecast.Chart
(Professional account upwards)
Draw a daily solar production forecast chart with simple Javascript snippets.Solar production, weather and time windows data are provided for up to 7 days with a resolution of 1 hour down to 15 minutes.
If you then checked the documentation and you like it, register an account for more features.
Calculation model
For the forecast, these 2 data points are mainly used in each case:
- historic irradiation data from PVGIS per plane combined with -
- weather forecast data per location from several weather services -
From the actual weather forecast for the location (with a possible offset because there are not so many stations around), we use e.g. the cloud coverage factor and the temperature forecasts, the cloud coverage is the most important, the temperature is relevant in hot summers when the modules can have > 70 °C which lowers the performance.
Data coverage
The figure shows the areas covered by the Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) solar radiation databases and therefor by Forecast.Solar.
(Click to enlarge)
With the latest update PVGIS v5.2 almost the entire world is now covered!
Restful API
Example: Get solar production estimate
You can easy build and test the required URLs with the Swagger-UI.
Request
https://forecast.solar/_your_API_key_/estimate/54.9/25.3/37/0/1Response (professional account, 15 minutes resolution)
{
"result": {
"watts": {
"2019-06-22 05:15:00": 17,
"2019-06-22 05:30:00": 22,
"2019-06-22 05:45:00": 27,
...
"2019-06-29 20:15:00": 14,
"2019-06-29 20:30:00": 11,
"2019-06-29 20:45:00": 7
},
"watt_hours": {
"2019-06-22 05:15:00": 0,
"2019-06-22 05:30:00": 6,
"2019-06-22 05:45:00": 12,
...
"2019-06-29 20:15:00": 2545,
"2019-06-29 20:30:00": 2548,
"2019-06-29 20:45:00": 2550
},
"watt_hours_day": {
"2019-06-22": 2626,
"2019-06-23": 2918,
"2019-06-24": 2526,
"2019-06-25": 2866,
"2019-06-26": 2892,
"2019-06-27": 1900,
"2019-06-28": 2199,
"2019-06-29": 2550
}
},
"message": {
"type": "success",
"code": 0,
"text": ""
}
}
Charts
You can direct draw chart for solar production estimate using the Forecast.Solar widget.
(Professional account upwards)
Chart for the geographical midpoint of Germany at 51°9'N,10°27'E with a declination of 37°, looking south with 10 kilo watt peak installated.
Today
Without given title or subtitle, no title is printed and the subtitle defaults to date
Tomorrow
Title with date placeholder, no subtitle is printed
Todays historic average production
Title without date placeholder, subtitle defaults in this case to the date
Todays theoretical clear sky production
No title given but subtitle with placeholder
Registration
You should consider to register an account for more features, compare plans in detail.
If you don't want to use your paid subscription after the trial period, you can cancel the subscription any time during the trial period and no costs will be charged.
After subscription you have a Self-Service
to see some information about your account and find/reset your API key if needed.
(Login with the PayPal subscription Id and your PayPal email address)
After you have subscribed, you will automatically receive 2 emails to the primary email address that is stored at PayPal:
- from PayPal with among other things your subscription Id
- from Forecast.Solar with your API key and further information
If you do not receive the email from Forecast.Solar promptly, do NOT try to make another subscription, check your SPAM folder! You can also go direct to the Self-Service to find your API key.
Please note:
-
Please double check if your location and plane parameters
definitions are correct!
You should always do this with the given check routes for locations and planes! - Always test with the public API before make a subscription!
Account models
Public
Free for liveWorks without API key for free, no subscription required
- Solar production forecast data
- Forecast horizon: This and the next day
- Data resolution: 1 hour
Best for users without loggers to get a quick idea about coming solar production.
Personal
14 EUR/yearSubscription with a valid email required, access with API key, free trial of 14 days.
Provide the same features as the Public API plus:
- Adjust forecast
- Average historic solar production data
- Forecast horizon: This and the next 3 days
- Data resolution: 30 minutes
Best for users with loggers to integrate the data automatic.
Subscribe here
Personal Plus
28 EUR/yearSubscription with a valid email required, access with API key, free trial of 14 days.
Provide the same features as the Personal API with more detailed data:
-
Request up to 2 planes in one request
(This is for example helpful for east/west installations) - Forecast horizon: This and the next 3 days
- Data resolution: 15 minutes
Best for users with loggers to integrate more detailed data automatic.
Subscribe here
Professional
70 EUR/yearSubscription with a valid email required, access with API key, free trial of 14 days.
Provide the same features as the Personal Plus API plus:
- Request up to 3 planes in one request
- Time windows for controllable loads
- Weather forecast data
- Solar production forecast chart
- Theoretical solar production data under clear sky conditions
- A SPA (e.g. for mobile phones) with charts for the expectations for today and tomorrow
- Forecast horizon: This and the next 6 days
Best for business users with more than one plant and/or loggers to integrate the data automatic.
Subscribe here
Professional Plus
120 EUR/yearSubscription with a valid email required, access with API key, free trial of 14 days.
Provide the same features as the Professional API plus:
- Request up to 4 planes in one request
- Double rate limits
Subscribe here
Enterprise
To scale your business according to your growth (e.g. when you reach the rate limits with a Professional Plus subscription), we recommend that you gradually take out additional subscriptions and simply distribute your API calls across multiple API keys accordingly.
Please also get in touch so that we can get an impression of your requirements.
APP developers
It is not allowed to share the API key with e.g. clients of your product! (It will also not work because of the rate limits for the API key.)
-
If you are developing an APP that will be delivered to customers in any way, the following setup is suggested:
- Deliver the APP with the use of the Public API by default.
- Provide an APP setting/configuration option where an API key can be entered.
- Your customers can now decide whether they want to take out a subscription themselves if they are interested in having more data. (This is for example the way, how the Home Assistant integration works.)
- If you host your APP yourself and the API key is not visible to your customers, please check out the Enterprise description above.
There are also some notes for developers in the documentation.
Home assistant is an open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
The integration was introduced in Home Assistant 2021.7
Solectrus is an alternative photovoltaic dashboard that visualises the yield and consumption of a PV system.
Available on Github.
The Python Package Index (PyPI) is a repository of software for the Python programming language.
Asynchronous Python client for getting solar forecast information.KNX
KNX - the intelligent standard for building
The logic module Forecast Solar provides a forecast of the PV yield of a specific site (E5 & E6).
EisBaer is a multi-protocol gateway visualization for creating intelligent, efficient and safe buildings.
Less energy consumption for more sustainable buildings and therefore lower operating costs. (Handbook)
my3E is the only native iOS app exclusively for E3/DC S10 home power plants!
With my3E you can view current and historical performance data of your E3/DC home power plant easily, quickly and in detail on your iPhone or iPad.
IP-Symcon - SMARTHOME WITHOUT COMPROMISES
For homeowners, corporations, and integrators - Design your building completely by your imagination. A smart software for your hardware. (Module on Github)
Support channels
With the increasing share of photovoltaics in the electricity market, the importance of Solar energy forecasts. These are an important tool for the integration of Solar power into existing network structures.
The production of solar power is dependent on external influences on which man has no or only limited influence. For example, Season, time of day, weather (eg ambient temperature, clouds, air turbidity).
A solar day covers the global energy supply for eight years.
Predictions about the availability of solar-generated electricity in the future support private power management, but are of great importance, above all, for commercial solar power generators and network operators.
