Half Hourly Solar Predictions

The aim of SolarCalc is to display irradiance data (essentially energy derived from the sun) as half hourly bar charts so that users can make an informed guess as to how much energy has been/will be provided during the day. This, in turn, can assist in determining how much any solar batteries may need charging during cheap rate tariff periods.

The data is provided by Solcast who offer limited (but still very useful) half hourly readings, free to home owners with PV systems. In order to avail themselves of this free data, users must set up a My Home PV system account with Solcast. Once this has been completed the user's Resource ID and API key must to be entered into the appropriate fields on the SolarCalc screen in order to retrieve readings. The Resource ID and API key only need to be entered once as they are then stored on your local computer. Although that information is passed on to a background process that process does not store the information in any way.

A condition of the free accounts is that users may only make a maximum of 10 calls to the Solcast API per day. Each time the SolarCalc background process runs it makes 2 calls to the Solcast API, effectively limiting the total number of calls to 5 per day. It should be noted that there is a finite delay between requesting data from Solcast and that data being displayed whereas local data (displayed when the Enable Solcast checkbox is unchecked) is displayed immediately.

1. Ensure that you have entered your Resource ID and API key in the relevant input fields
2. Check the Enable Solcast box if you want the latest data otherwise you will get the most recently saved charts
3. Check the Add Yesterday box if you want to include the previous day's data
4. Uncheck the Enable Graph box if you do not want the power graph included
5. Once all selections are made, clicking on Update will produce the relevant bar charts
6. Clicking on Current Calculator Displays a new page to enable you to calculate the required % SOC uplift
7. Click here to toggle the Resource and API key display
8. Contact doug.conran49@googlemail.com with a subject heading Solarcalc Query for queries and issues.