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. Use our API to automatically POST your past and/or live measured data data directly to our API. Once you’ve posted more than about 4 to 6 weeks of data, tuning will be applied to your rooftop site.

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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

Power production Forecast (now to +7 days) and Live (-7 days to now) estimated actuals data
Choice of lat/lon based API requests, or via creation of rooftop site (allows tuning)
Global coverage, use one API wherever you operate

PV Tuning: captures the impacts of shading or other de-ratings from your measurement data
Privacy agreement for your shared measurement 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	Rooftop Sites or via Simple Lat/Lon PV Power requests: 30 minutes (period mean)
Update frequency	Every 10 or 15 minutes
Time span (Forecast)	Present time to +7 days ahead
Time span (Live)	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	2 months (12 months is ideal)
Minimum measured data parameters we require	Total power output (kW)
Allowable time granularity of your measured data	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
API call options	Your choice of either: Lat/lon based Simple Lat/Lon PV Power requests (allows greater flexibility) Creation of weather site (allows for tuning, measurement upload and site management)

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.

Or, just start making lat/lon based API PV Power requests.

Verified residential home hobby users will receive an additional free daily API request allowance (for their single home site only).

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Rooftop Solar Forecasts

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