HA Solcast PV Solar Forecast Integration

Home Assistant(https://www.home-assistant.io) Integration Component

This custom component integrates the Solcast Hobby PV Forecast API into Home Assistant.

⚠️ Solcast have altered their API limits for new account creators

Solcast now only offer new account creators 10 api calls per day (used to be 50). 
Old account users still have 50 api calls

The integration now no longer includes auto api polling. Users now need to create their own automations
to call the update solcast service to poll for new data. Keep in mind your API poll limit.

Solcast Requirements:

Sign up for an API key (https://solcast.com/)

Solcast may take up to 24hrs to create the account

Copy the API Key for use with this integration (See Configuration below).

Installation

HACS (recommended)

Using HACS. More info here

Manually in HACS
Follow the link here
Use the custom repo link https://github.com/oziee/ha-solcast-solar
Select the category type integration
Then once it's there (still in HACS) click the INSTALL button
Then go to the HA Devices and Services and add a new Solcast Integration

Manually

You probably do not want to do this! Use the HACS method above unless you know what you are doing and have a good reason as to why you are installing manually

1. Using the tool of choice open the directory (folder) for your HA configuration (where you find configuration.yaml)
2. If you do not have a custom_components directory there, you need to create it
3. In the custom_components directory create a new folder called solcast_solar
4. Download all the files from the custom_components/solcast_solar/ directory in this repository
5. Place the files you downloaded in the new directory you created
6. Restart HA to load the new integration
7. See Configuration below

Configuration

1. Click Here to directly add a Solcast Solar integration or
   a. In Home Assistant, go to Settings -> Integrations
   b. Click + Add Integrations and select Solcast PV Forecast
   
2. Enter you Solcast API Key
3. Click Submit

• Create your own automation to call the service solcast_solar.update_forecasts when you like it to call

• Change the configuration options for an existing Solcast PV Forecast integration in the Home Assistant Integrations by selecting Solcast then Configure (cog wheel)

• If you have more than one Solcast account because you have more than 2 rooftop setups, enter both account API keys separated by a comma xxxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx,yyyyyyyy-yyyyy-yyyy (NB: this goes against Solcast T&C's by having more than one account)

• Make sure you enter your API Key not your rooftop id created in Solcast. You can find your API key here api key

Dampening Configuration

New in v4.0.8 is the option to configure hourly dampening values

Here you can change the dampening factor value for any hour. Values from 0.0 - 1.0 are valid. Setting 0.95 will dampen each Solcast forecast data value by 5%. This is reflected in the sensor values and attributes and also in the graphical Home Assistant Energy dashboard.

Services

These are the services for this integration (Configuration)

Service	Action
solcast_solar.update_forecasts	Updates the future forecast data only
solcast_solar.clear_all_solcast_data	Deletes the solcast.json cached file
solcast_solar.query_forecast_data	Returns a list of forecast data using a datetime range start - end
solcast_solar.set_dampening	Updates the hourly dampening factors
solcast_solar.set_hard_limit	Set inverter forecast hard limit
solcast_solar.remove_hard_limit	Remove inverter forecast hard limit

Basic HA Automation to manual poll Solcast API data

Create a new HA automation and setup your prefered trigger times to manually poll for new Solcast forecast data.
These are examples.. alter these or create your own to fit your own needs

alias: Solcast_update
description: New API call Solcast
trigger:
 - platform: time_pattern
   hours: /4
condition:
 - condition: sun
   before: sunset
   after: sunrise
action:
 - delay:
     seconds: "{{ range(30, 360)|random|int }}"
 - service: solcast_solar.update_forecasts
   data: {}
mode: single

or

alias: Solcast update
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "4:00:00"
  - platform: time
    at: "10:00:00"
  - platform: time
    at: "16:00:00"
condition: []
action:
  - delay:
      seconds: "{{ range(30, 360)|random|int }}"
  - service: solcast_solar.update_forecasts
    data: {}
mode: single

To make the most of the available API calls, you can call the API in an interval calculated by the number of daytime hours divided by the number of total API calls a day you can make:

alias: Solcast update
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: template
    value_template: >-
      {% set nr = as_datetime(state_attr('sun.sun','next_rising')) | as_local %}
      {% set ns = as_datetime(state_attr('sun.sun','next_setting')) | as_local %}
      {% set api_request_limit = 10 %}
      {% if nr > ns %}
        {% set nr = nr - timedelta(hours = 24) %} 
      {% endif %}
      {% set hours_difference = (ns - nr) %}
      {% set interval_hours = hours_difference / api_request_limit %}
      {% set ns = namespace(match = false) %}
      {% for i in range(api_request_limit) %}
        {% set start_time = nr + (i * interval_hours) %}
        {% if ((start_time - timedelta(seconds=30)) <= now()) and (now() <= (start_time + timedelta(seconds=30))) %}
          {% set ns.match = true %}
        {% endif %}
      {% endfor %}
      {{ ns.match }}
condition:
  - condition: sun
    before: sunset
    after: sunrise
action:
  - delay:
      seconds: "{{ range(30, 360)|random|int }}"
  - service: solcast_solar.update_forecasts
    data: {}
mode: single

Note If you have two arrays on your roof then 2 api calls will be made for each update, effectively reducing the number of updates to 5 per day. For this case, change to: api_request_limit = 5

Set up HA Energy Dashboard settings

Go to the HA>Settings>Dashboards>Energy

Click the 'edit the Solar Production' item you have previously created in the Energy dashboard.

Note If you do not have a solar generation sensor in your system then this integration will not work in the Energy dashboard. The graph, and adding the forecast integration rely on there being a generation sensor setup

Click the Forecast option button and select the Solcast Solar option.. Click SAVE.. HA will do all the rest for you

HA Views:

HA Energy Tab

Sensors

Name	Type	Attributes	Unit	Description
Today	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for today
Tomorrow	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 1 (tomorrow)
D3	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 2 (day 3)
D4	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 3 (day 4)
D5	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 4 (day 5)
D6	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 5 (day 6)
D7	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast solar production for day + 6 (day 7)
This Hour	number	N	Wh	Forecasted solar production current hour
Next Hour	number	N	Wh	Forecasted solar production next hour
Forecast Next X Hours	number	N	kWh	Custom user defined X hour forecast
Remaining Today	number	N	kWh	Predicted remaining solar production today
Peak Forecast Today	number	N	W	Highest predicted production within an hour period today
Peak Time Today	date/time	N		Hour of max forecasted production of solar today
Peak Forecast Tomorrow	number	N	W	Highest predicted production within an hour period tomorrow
Peak Time Tomorrow	date/time	N		Hour of max forecasted production of solar tomorrow
Power Now	number	N	W	Power forecast during the current 0-30 / 30-59 min hour period
Power Next 30 Mins	number	N	W	Power forecast for the next 30 min block period
Power Next Hour	number	N	W	Power forecast for the next block 60 min from now

Configuration

Name	Type	Attributes	Unit	Description
Forecast Field	selector	N		selector to select the Solcast value field for calculations either 'estimate', 'estimate10' or 'estimate90'

Diagnostic

Name	Type	Attributes	Unit	Description
API Last Polled	date/time	N		Date/time when the API data was polled
API Limit	number	N	integer	Total times the API can been called in a 24 hour period1
API used	number	N	integer	Total times the API has been called today (API counter resets to zero at midnight UTC)1
Hard Limit Set		N		False is not set, else set integer value in watts. Can only be set or removed by service (services)
Rooftop(s) name	number	Y	kWh	Total forecast for rooftop today (attributes contain the solcast rooftop setup)2

Credits

Modified from the great works of

• @rany2 - [email protected]
• dannerph/homeassistant-solcast
• cjtapper/solcast-py
• home-assistant-libs/forecast_solar

Footnotes

1. API usage information is directly read from Solcast ↩ ↩²

2. Each rooftop created in Solcast will be listed separately ↩