Solar power forecasts for rooftop sites via API

Connecting your rooftop site with our rapid-update cloud nowcasting system and delivering 30 minute resolution power forecasts out through 7 days ahead via our API. Set-up your test site within minutes!

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Capture Shading Impacts
Detect Degradation, Estimate Tilt
Identify Azimuth Angles
Individualise Cloud Impacts

Actual

Untuned

PV Tuning: Forecasting for your PV system

Shading? Soiling? Split arrays? Unsure of system specs? No problem! Take advantage of our PV tuning technology, which learns from your shared power measurements to individualise the forecast. Tune a site with as little as 6 weeks of historical data. Or POST live data directly to our API to keep us up to date as your site changes.

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Proven customer use cases for rooftop solar forecasting:

Accurately plan and manage home energy use around solar intermittency
Optimising charge/discharge of home energy storage systems

Managing peak demand charges for large commercial energy users
Enable smart energy trading strategies across rooftop solar portfolios

Conduct DIY experiments or build new products/apps
Conduct research (Solcast offers free access to this product for non-commercial use)

Features and benefits

Live power forecast and estimated actuals data
Global coverage, use one API wherever you operate

PV Tuning included: captures the impacts of shading or other de-ratings from your measurement data
Privacy agreement for your shared data, ability to permanently delete

Specifications

Data Specifications
Parameters	PV Power (kW)
Forecast probabilities	10th and 90th percentile forecasts provided for: PV Power (kW)
Spatial coverage	All continents (Rapid update actuals and forecast data) Global (forecasts)
Time granularity	30 minutes (period mean only)
Update frequency	Every 10 or 15 minutes
Time span (Forecast)	Present time to +7 days ahead
Time span (Realtime)	7 days ago to present time
Power modelling – Included Metadata options
Maximum installed capacity	2,000 kW
Tracking systems supported?	No
Minimum metadata you need to provide	latitude, longitude (and capacity, if you don’t upload or post measurements)
Additional metadata you can share for better forecast	azimuth, tilt, AC capacity, DC capacity, loss factor, install date
Multiple tilts/tracks supported?	No. You can create and group multiple sites, or you can use tuning.
Power modelling - Included tuning options
Detects your site specifications from measured data?	Yes
Learns about shading, slope and other site-specific factors?	Yes
Minimum period of measurement data required to start improving your forecast with tuning	6 weeks (12 months is ideal)
Minimum measured data parameters we require	Total power output (kW)
Additional measured data parameters you can post for a better forecast	Nil
Allowable time granularity of your measured data	One-off historical upload: 1 to 30 minutes (5 minute means every 5 minutes is ideal) Live data posting to Solcast API: 5 to 30 minutes (5 minute means every 5 minutes is ideal)
Automated HTTP post of live or recent measured data to our API, for continuously updated tuning and live accuracy tracking?	Yes
Privacy agreement for your measurement data?	Yes
Ability to permanently delete your measurement data?	Yes

Check it out for yourself, add a rooftop site and start testing

You can get started now by signing up for our API, and then adding your site location, a name and a few basic details about its technical specifications.

Within minutes, we’ll have your forecasting tools ready for use with little hassle and no upfront costs to trial.

Once your rooftop site is setup in our system, you can send us an upload of recent historical data (or join pvoutput.org and tell us your site ID) to take advantage of our proprietary PV tuning algorithms to improve your forecasts.

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Rooftop Solar Forecasts

Solar power forecasting for rooftops - just one, or thousands.