Forecasting tomorrow's sunshine (to better use the solar)

bullit_dodger

met.ie updates every 4 hrs (or so), so you can pull the data from whenever. In my case I pull at 5am, so just before the sun comes up. If you pull the data at 8am then you've potentially missed a few hours production from day 6am to 8am.

I added 3 panels to my own system last week, so the the recent estimated in the last week were off. Should settle down in a few days. I'll make this app available to people in a few weeks.

Aside: Tomorrow could be the best day of the year so far .... at least for Dublin. Haven't looked elsewhere in the country

Delboy5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120447068#Comment_120447068

Thanks bullit_dodger i would defo appreciate the app as Im sure some others would. Currently doing a bit of manual work with Excel to see my Predictions, today and tomorrow both giving me over 20kwh...

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120447068#Comment_120447068

Class, you extended again. 3rd times a charm :) Another DIY micro inverter?

bullit_dodger

Nahh, I added 3x panels via my original installer to the main roof installation, so they are on the sting inverter. I originally wanted to have these on there back in the day, but SEAI guidelines necessitated that you have 50cm from the edge etc and that meant that I couldn't get them on there and still get the grant.

Grant obtained 6 months ago. It's my dime and my roof now, so on go the panels that I originally wanted. Still plenty of room to the edge and apex (like 32cm or something), but technically not the 50cm that they want. So main roof up to 6.5Kwp and the shed chipping in with 2.3Kwp brining me to 8.8Kwp in total.

I had a look on Google maps, and have yet to find anyone in south city Dublin with as many panels (I've 23). LOL. Maybe there's one out there, but I've not seen them. 18 is the highest I've found.

silver_sky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120446418#Comment_120446418

On my setup I run it at 12:01 and then again at 1:30am. Battery charging if required takes place from 2-6.

The forecast later in the morning is probably more accurate but not much use for decision making at that point.

bullit_dodger

One thing I can tell you silver as I was running it on the hour every hour that it (the forecast) doesn't change from 12:01 and 1:30am. They update at 11pm (or 00:00 in the summer), and then they update again at 4am usually. I've mine set to charge from 5am -> 9am (summer time) I left it as late as I possibly could as if for example there was a few watts coming in at 7:30am, might as well grab it also.

It charges at 2.6kw so with a 8.5kw battery it can take a little bit over 3 hrs if empty. If the forecast significantly improves during that charge window, say for example i decided to charge to 80% and then all of a sudden it's blue skies forecasted for the day, then I leave what I have and set a new charge level like 20% or so.

JayBee66

HA forecasted 28.6KWh for today but production was only 25.1KWh. Does God do compo?

I disabled Forecast.Solar so I assume it's SolCast doing the forecast on the Energy dashboard.

Although the sky was mostly blue by midday there were some big clouds loitering over the house and that's something a prediction model can't account for.

I'll use SolCast to tell me roughly when to shower or run the oven so that the PV rather than the grid assists the battery. I'll be happy with that.

silver_sky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120448055#Comment_120448055

The two times is more a doublecheck in case there are any issues as I frequently run HA updates after midnight. I've mine done in such a way that it works out the lowest possible charge rate for the time period. I figured this might be better than ramming as much in as quick as possible, just in terms of battery longevity.