Utility Scale Solar Forecasts
Solar power forecasting for solar farms or solar parks, delivered via API. Share your measurements & improve. If the first 10 minutes really matters, add one or more sky cameras.
Rapid update solar power forecasts with global coverage
Forecasts at 5, 10, 15 or 30 minute time granularity, to +7 days ahead. Rapid update data at 5-15 minute resolution. Delivered via API & trusted by customers worldwide. Set-up your test site within minutes!
Share SCADA data and watch the forecast improve
Take advantage of our PV tuning technologies, which learn from your solar farm to individualise the forecast. POST your real-time SCADA data to the Solcast API or upload an extract of 3-12 months of historical data.
Proven use cases for our utility scale solar farm forecasting:
Avoiding penalties or meeting grid requirements
Management of attached energy storage
Management of microgrids or remote grids
Planning maintenance, commissioning or testing
Features and benefits
- Live, rapid-update power forecast
- Global coverage, use one API wherever you operate
- PV Tuning included: captures the impacts of shading and other de-ratings from your SCADA data.
- Probabilistic power forecasting which includes 10th & 90th percentiles
- Includes forecast weather data (radiation, temperature, etc.)
- Includes accuracy reporting (try this now for your site, free)
Specifications
| Data Specifications | |
Formats available |
CSV JSON XML |
Parameters |
Power:
Weather:
|
Forecast probabilities |
10th and 90th percentile forecasts provided for:
|
Spatial coverage |
All continents (Rapid update actuals and forecast data) Global (forecasts) |
Time granularity |
Standard (Rapid Update): 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes (period mean) Super Rapid Update: 1 minute |
Update frequency |
Standard (Rapid Update): Every 10 or 15 minutes Super Rapid Update: 1 minute |
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 |
Unlimited |
Tracking systems supported? |
Yes |
Minimum metadata you need to provide |
latitude, longitude (and MWac capacity, if you don’t upload or post your measurements) |
Additional metadata you can share for a better forecast |
azimuth, tilt, AC capacity, DC capacity, tracking type, loss factor, install date |
Multiple tilts/tracks supported? |
Yes – via separate posting/requests, then add results |
Additional metadata you can share to enable a better forecast |
AC and DC capacity, azimuth, tilt, loss factor and install date |
| 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 (MW) |
Additional measured data parameters you can post for a better forecast |
Current availability (% of AC capacity) Site-mean GHI radiation (W/m2) Network constraint flag (Boolean) Network constraint value (MW) |
Allowable time granularity of your measured data |
One-off historical upload:
Live data posting to Solcast API:
|
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 |
Setup your own test site within minutes!
Get started now, and connect your solar farm with rapid-update forecasts with global coverage. All you need to get started are a few basic details about its location, capacity and tracking capabilities.
Once your utility scale solar site is setup in our system, you can send us an upload of recent historical data (3-6 months) from your solar farm to take advantage of our proprietary PV tuning algorithms to improve your forecasts.
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