What is a good replacement to the (soon to be gone) darksky weather API? Here is the problem: One of my parents lives off grid on Solar+Battery. The generation side is oversized on purpose so that in the winter power is not super scarce. However if it is sunny for most of the day, there are a few large electrical loads (“optional” hot water heaters, extra heat pumps, dryers) that would be very nice to run. You _could_ wake up on the day and see. But since power generation starts early (sunrise), you want to start these loads (the panels are 30kW, the battery charging is limited to 15~kW) as soon as possible. The switching part is easy, the sunshine forecasting is hard. Darksky seemed to have the only accessible API that gave you (based on lat/long (remember off-grid rural)) hour by hour weather. I don’t know/can’t find anything to replace it? Does anyone know anything that could fill this need? (Even if it’s low-ish cost rather than free)
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:11 +0000
in reply to: https://fosstodon.org/users/isomer/statuses/109581071063156157
@isomer The batteries hit 75% too late in the day for this to use the extra power effectively. (See the battery charge rate vs generation rate in good sunlight). Hence the integration between forecasts and power generation being quite important
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:13 +0000
in reply to: https://toot.cat/users/dee/statuses/109581073568783025
@dee Hmm, the "free" 500 reqs a day would be fine, but the "randomly shuffled" bit slightly concerns me 900EUR/y might offset the backup diesel cost that a failure to model consumes, but it might be tight at that rate
😅
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:29 +0000
in reply to: https://toot.cat/users/dee/statuses/109581146150833402
@dee oh now _that_ is helpful. Specific W/m² forecasting is compelling. If the API was not vague about when it is going to be inaccurate that would be perfect, I don't really want to go down the headless chrome route since I don't want to become a SRE (Solar Reliability Engineer) for somewhere I don't typically live!
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:33 +0000
in reply to: https://toot.cat/users/dee/statuses/109581162934643010
@dee Such great downsides include, if you break power, there is no remote access! You have to guide them over the (spotty signal) phone on how to unbreak it !!!
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:16 +0000
in reply to: https://10000x.dev/users/russ/statuses/109581089491523271
@russ Since the MPTT's are only normally taking the power from the panels to charge the battery (14kW) + house (2kW~), it's quite hard to know on the spot if there is extra power around. (I've yet to probe them over CAN) That and also it would be nice to run things like heat pumps for a long time, rather than short bursts. Since cloud cover could reduce battery charging and hurt if the next day is very poor.
benjojo
replied 26 Dec 2022 17:18 +0000
in reply to: https://queer.party/users/unlobito/statuses/109581091594976142
@unlobito ooh, I didnt actually realise they kept the REST API (figured it was apple platform devices only). 99usd/y is a good deal if that's the case!