Solar production estimate

Solar production estimate

Get solar production estimate for specific location (defined by latitude and longitude) and a specific plane orientation (defined by declination and azimuth) for an installed module power.

Solar production estimation

estimate provides the forecast for today and the following days (depending on the account model).

Historic solar production

historic means here that the average of all years of the available weather data on that day is considered, the current weather is thus not included in the calculation.

But no data can be queried for the past, only for today plus the next few days.

Clear sky solar production

If there were no clouds it would be a clear sky. clearsky thus calculates the theoretically possible production.

URL parameters

:!:   Please check always if your location and plane parameters are valid before you go live! You can do this with the check route.

  • :apikey - personal API key for registered users; string
  • :lat - latitude of location, -90 (south) … 90 (north); handeled with a precission of 0.0001 or abt. 10 m
  • :lon - longitude of location, -180 (west) … 180 (east); handeled with a precission of 0.0001 or abt. 10 m
  • :dec - plane declination, 0 (horizontal) … 90 (vertical) - always in relation to the earth's surface; integer
  • :az - plane azimuth, -180180 (-180 = north, -90 = east, 0 = south, 90 = west, 180 = north); integer
  • :kwp - installed modules power in kilo watt; float

Please see the examples below.

:lat and :lon can also be given as

  • <degrees>,<arc minutes>,<arc seconds>(N|S|W|E), e.g. 12,10,34N == 12.17611
  • <degrees>°<arc minutes>'<arc seconds>”(N|S|W|E), e.g. 12°10'34”N == 12.17611

Azimuth

:!:   Please note that e.g. Home Assistant uses internal a 0° … 360° logic, so make sure to translate for direct API calls …

For the lazy ones, if you have an exact NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW or N azimuth, you can also use their identifiers …

You can poke around with the Swagger Editor to build proper request URLs.

To find your azimuth, please refer to these instructions.

Account models

(Documentation here use the estimate mode, you can replace it with history for historic data or with clearsky for theoretic results for clear sky conditions.)

Public

  • 1 plane can be accessed by an API call
  • only estimate data available
https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp

Personal / Personal Plus

  • 1 (Personal) or combined data of 2 (Personal Plus) planes can be accessed by an API call
  • estimate and history data are available
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec1/:az1/:kwp1/:dec2/:az2/:kwp2

Professional / Professional Plus

  • Combined data of up to 3 (Professional) or 4 (Professional Plus) planes can be accessed by one API call
  • estimate, history and clearsky data are available
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec1/:az1/:kwp1/:dec2/:az2/:kwp2
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec1/:az1/:kwp1/:dec2/:az2/:kwp2/:dec3/:az3/:kwp3
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/:lat/:lon/:dec1/:az1/:kwp1/:dec2/:az2/:kwp2/:dec3/:az3/:kwp3/:dec4/:az4/:kwp4

Responses

Watts, Watt hours over day, Watt hours per period, Watt hours per day

There are also routes available to query only the watts, watt hours, watt hours per period or watt hours per day.

https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watts/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watthours/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watthours/period/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watthours/day/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp

The same for Personal and Professional accounts with API key

https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/watts/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/watthours/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/watthours/period/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp
https://api.forecast.solar/:apikey/estimate/watthours/day/:lat/:lon/:dec/:az/:kwp

Content

The response have in the result section 4 entries:

  • watts - Watts (power) average for the period
  • watt_hours_period - Watt hours (energy) for the period
  • watt_hours - Watt hours (energy) summarized over the day
  • watt_hours_day - Watt hours (energy) summarized for each day

:!:   For watts and watt_hours_period the value is always for the period from last timestamp to the timsestamp in the key.

Example

Get solar production estimate per day as CSV for a location 52° north, 12° east, for an plane with a declination of 37° looking south (0°) and panels with 5.67 kWp installed.

curl -H 'Accept: text/csv' 'https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watthours/day/52/12/37/0/5.67'
2016-02-08;3680
2016-02-09;13545
2016-02-10;8347
2016-02-11;3873
2016-02-12;18763
2016-02-13;4022
2016-02-14;4298
2016-02-15;3395

Get solar production estimate as JSON for 52° north, 12° east, for a installation with a declination of 37° looking south (0°) with 5.67 kWp

curl https://api.forecast.solar/estimate/watthours/52/12/37/0/5.67
{
    "result": {
        "watts": {
            "2022-10-12 07:29:00": 0,
            "2022-10-12 08:00:00": 1570,
            ...
            "2022-10-12 18:00:00": 521,
            "2022-10-12 18:27:00": 0,
            "2022-10-13 07:31:00": 0,
            "2022-10-13 08:00:00": 894,
            ...
            "2022-10-13 18:00:00": 133,
            "2022-10-13 18:24:00": 0
        },
        "watt_hours": {
            "2022-10-12 07:29:00": 0,
            "2022-10-12 08:00:00": 406,
            ...
            "2022-10-12 18:00:00": 33248,
            "2022-10-12 18:27:00": 33365,
            "2022-10-13 07:31:00": 0,
            "2022-10-13 08:00:00": 216,
            ...
            "2022-10-13 18:00:00": 11881,
            "2022-10-13 18:24:00": 11907
        },
        "watt_hours_period": {
            "2022-10-12 07:29:00": 0,
            "2022-10-12 08:00:00": 406,
            ...
            "2022-10-12 18:00:00": 993,
            "2022-10-12 18:27:00": 117,
            "2022-10-13 07:31:00": 0,
            "2022-10-13 08:00:00": 216,
            ...
            "2022-10-13 18:00:00": 173,
            "2022-10-13 18:24:00": 27
        },
        "watt_hours_day": {
            "2022-10-12": 33365,
            "2022-10-13": 11907
        }
    },
    "message": {
        "code": 0,
        "type": "success",
        "text": "",
        "info": {
            "latitude": 52,
            "longitude": 12,
            "distance": 0,
            "place": "L 51, Schora, Moritz, Zerbst/Anhalt, Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Sachsen-Anhalt, 39264, Deutschland",
            "timezone": "Europe/Berlin",
            "time": "2022-10-12T14:25:10+02:00",
            "time_utc": "2022-10-12T12:25:10+00:00"
        },
        "ratelimit": {
            "period": 3600,
            "limit": 12,
            "remaining": 10
        }
    }
}

The watt_hours data will simulate a daily electricity meter and therefor resets to 0 at day change!