Data and API changelog

Irradiance and PV Power forecasts out to 180 hours are improved due to addition of the ICON-Global numerical weather prediction model to the inputs of the Cloud Model

TMY queries now include the whole of 2024 in the input long-term timeseries when generating the synthetic TMY data.

The measurement endpoint for hobbyist has been fully deprecated.

Specifically, the following endpoint:

https://api.solcast.com.au/rooftop_sites/{rooftop_resource_id}/measurement

Solcast will still continue to accept requests via that endpoint to prevent breaking existing integrations.

For the period 2024-07-01 to 2024-11-17 the final ERA5 release from ECMWF differed from the ERA5T release, and has now been backfilled. All historical weather and downstream parameters will differ.

For more information see: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/CKB/ERA5T+issue+in+snow+depth+-+July-November+2024

The irradiance and PV power forecasts are improved through modification and calibration of cloud detection in selected regions.

The Air Temp output parameter will be updated from integer values to decimal values for TMY Radiation and Weather endpoint

The irradiance and PV Power forecasts produced from 2 hours ahead to 48 hours ahead in North America are improved due to the addition of HRRR model to the inputs of the Cloud Model

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The Historic endpoints for Radiation and Weather, Rooftop PV Power and Advanced PV Power timestamp output will be in the format yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss±hh:mm

The issue frequency of Solcast medium term forecasts is doubled from 4 times a day to 8 times a day

The irradiance and PV Power forecasts produced from 2 hours ahead to 48 hours ahead in Europe are improved due to the addition of ICON-EU to the inputs of the Cloud Model

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Improved accuracy for historic, live and forecast cloud, irradiance and power data

Improved accuracy for historic, live and forecast cloud, irradiance and power data

TMY queries now include the whole of 2023 in the input long-term timeseries when generating the synthetic TMY data.

Now that Himawari-9 has been operational over East Asia and Oceania for a sufficient period, we have updated our cloud calibrations over this region. All cloud, radiation and PV power data over the region from 2022-12-13 onwards has been updated and is now more accurate.

Our Radiation and Weather model across all products now take into account backtracking of solar panels for array_type=horizontal_single_axis, which will give a more physically realistic shape to our GTI. Note that the Advanced PV Power model already includes backtracking and is not affected by this change.

We’ve implemented changes to our Digital Surface Model which will enable higher resolution and accuracy. We’ve migrated from Mapzen DEM to the Copernicus DEM. Results retrieved after this change should be considered higher accuracy.

Radiation and PV power data over South America is now more accurate.

The Historic Time Series csv files downloaded from Toolkit are now in the same format as those obtained from the Historic Time Series API endpoint.

Added the SnowDepth parameter to TMY data downloads in the pvsyst+csv format.

Improved Power estimates for bifacial Advanced PV Power systems during snow events.

Specialty /tmy_hourly endpoint, and Legacy TMY p50 toolkit access, now uses latest version of radiation algorithms and recent years, updated from a static snapshot dataset.

Improved bias for forecast DNI and power.

Providing URL parameter terrain_shading=True to API requests will apply terrain shading. See https://solcast.com/blog/whoa-terrain-shading-is-now-live-in-the-solcast-api

Improved accuracy during snow events in Historic data

Improved accuracy for Live actuals near dawn/dusk, and for short-range forecasts issued around dawn/dusk.

Probabilistic and 15min and up TMY data now available via API calls. Previously this was only available via manually using the Solcast API Toolkit. See https://docs.solcast.com.au/#2144b738-a1f7-4647-9067-6e7f6eca32a8

Historic data now includes effects of Eclipses (note that this was already the case for Live and Forecast data).

Unmetered locations for testing and integration available for all products https://docs.solcast.com.au/#unmetered-locations

New parameters available: snow_water_equivalent, snow_depth. See https://solcast.com/blog/new-snow-parameters-api

Improved accuracy for Live and Forecast Data, and post-2020 Historic data. We have updated our calibrations as the current generation of satellites have now been operating for several years, so more accurate calibrations are possible.

Minor improvements to snow soiling calculations.

Improved bias and error for radiation and power data. See https://solcast.com/blog/new-input-drives-improvement-hts