Forecast.Solar smart home integration, free and open source
Solar production forecast for your PV panels: power now, energy today and tomorrow.
Published by prohand
- Devices
- Version 1.4.1
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
This integration shows in Gladys the production forecast of your solar panels, computed by the free Forecast.Solar service from the weather forecast.
Requires Gladys 5.1.0 or later.
Houses
The location comes from the houses configured in Gladys (Settings > Houses): at install time, Gladys asks you to allow access to the location of the houses.
- Each located house shows up as a device in the Discover tab.
- Add only the houses that have solar panels: only those are queried (no request wasted).
- A house without location does not show up: set its location in Gladys, then press Scan in the Discover tab.
What you get
For each added house, one Solar forecast device with 4 sensors:
| Sensor | Unit | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated power now | W | Estimated power right now |
| Estimated energy today | kWh | Estimated production for the whole day |
| Estimated energy remaining today | kWh | Estimated production until the end of day |
| Estimated energy tomorrow | kWh | Estimated production for tomorrow |
These are forecasts, not measurements: they are not counted in the Gladys Energy Monitoring.
Configuration
- Open the Configuration tab of the integration.
- Describe your panels:
- Tilt: 0° = flat, 90° = vertical (often 30 to 35° on a roof);
- Orientation: 0° = south, -90° = east, 90° = west, 180° = north;
- Peak power in Wp, whole number (e.g. 3000 for 3 kWp; written on your contract or inverter).
- The API key is optional: leave it empty for the free plan.
- Save, then add the device of your house from the Discover tab.
These settings apply to every added house.
The Refresh the forecast now button downloads the forecast right away and shows a summary for today and tomorrow.
Dashboard widgets
| Widget | Content |
|---|---|
| Solar forecast | Power now, energy today / remaining / tomorrow, power curve, peak |
| Best solar time slot | Best moment to run an appliance of N hours, today and tomorrow |
In the widget, choose the device (the house) and, for the best slot, the appliance duration (washing machine 2 h, dishwasher 3 h…).
Scenes
Triggers
| Trigger | When |
|---|---|
| Solar forecast updated | Each time a new forecast is downloaded |
| Solar production starts | Estimated start of production (sunrise) |
| Solar production peak | Estimated production peak of the day |
| Solar production ends | Estimated end of production (sunset) |
Optional filter on the house (empty = any). Variables available to the next actions: house, power now, energy today, remaining, tomorrow, peak power and time.
For a threshold ("if tomorrow > 10 kWh"), use the standard Gladys "Device state change" trigger on the "Estimated energy tomorrow" sensor.
Actions
| Action | Parameters | Results |
|---|---|---|
| Read the solar forecast | house | power, energy today / remaining / tomorrow, peak |
| Solar production in the next hours | house, hours | energy (kWh), average and maximum power (W) |
| Find the best solar time slot | house, duration, day | found, start / end time, energy, minutes until the start |
Example: every morning at 8 a.m., "Find the best solar time slot" (2 h, today), then wait "minutes until the start" and start the washing machine.
How it works
- The forecast is downloaded every 60 minutes by default (15 to 1440 minutes), per added house.
- The free plan allows 12 requests per hour per IP address, for all your houses together. With several houses, the interval is lengthened automatically so that they never make more than 10 requests in an hour (3 houses: every 20 minutes at the most, 4 or 5 houses: every 30 minutes, 6 to 10 houses: every hour); the configured interval remains the minimum.
- On an error, the integration retries 15 minutes later and keeps the last known forecast. When the limit is reached, it waits until the time Forecast.Solar gives before any new request.
- The Refresh the forecast now button downloads the forecast again, unless it was downloaded less than 5 minutes ago.
- Between two downloads, the values are recomputed every 5 minutes (the power follows the sun curve) and published when they change, or at least every 30 minutes, to keep the history small.
- After the last point of the forecast (tomorrow's sunset), the estimated power is no longer published if no new forecast could be downloaded: it is unknown, not 0 W.
- Houses are read again at every start, every discovery and every hour (a minute later after a failure).
- One plane of panels per house. For an east/west installation, enter the orientation and peak power of the main plane.
Troubleshooting
- "Configuration incomplete or invalid": a required field is empty or out of range (the field name is given).
- "No house with a location": set the location of a house in Settings > Houses.
- "Forecast.Solar request limit reached": too many requests from your IP address (another tool may use Forecast.Solar too). Raise the refresh interval.
- For details, read the integration logs from Gladys (or
docker logson the host) withLOG_LEVEL=debug. The coordinates of your houses and your API key are masked (***) in the logged requests.
Configuration settings
These are the settings Forecast.Solar asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getting started | section | No | The forecast uses the location of your houses in Gladys (Settings > Houses): one device per located house, add only the ones with solar panels. Then describe the panels below. Free plan: no account, 12 requests per hour. |
| Tilt (°) | number | Yes | Angle of the panels: 0 = flat, 90 = vertical. |
| Orientation (°) | number | Yes | Direction the panels face: 0 = south, -90 = east, 90 = west, 180 = north. |
| Peak power (Wp) | number | Yes | Installed peak power of the panels, in watt-peak (whole number), e.g. 3000 for 3 kWp or 6200 for 6.2 kWp. |
| API key (optional) | secret | No | Leave empty for the free plan. |
| Forecast refresh interval (min) | number | No | How often the forecast is downloaded again. The values shown in Gladys are still updated every 5 minutes. |
How to install Forecast.Solar in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Forecast.Solar appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
- Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (
ghcr.io/prohand/gladys-forecastsolar:1.4.1), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration). - Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
- You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/prohand/gladys-forecastsolar.
Forecast.Solar requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.
Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.
About external integrations
Forecast.Solar is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by prohand, not by the Gladys core team.
- Browse all integrations, native and community
- Build and publish your own external integration
- Source code on GitHub — source of this documentation