Open-Meteo Forecast Solar smart home integration, free and open source
Solar panel production forecast for today and tomorrow, from the free Open-Meteo API.
Published by prohand
- Devices
- Version 0.0.1
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
This integration estimates what your solar panels will produce, today and tomorrow, from the free Open-Meteo weather forecast. No account, no API key: it works as soon as it is installed.
It is a cloud integration: Gladys must reach api.open-meteo.com over the internet.
It needs Gladys 5.1 or later.
Before you start
The forecast is made for the location of your house in Gladys (Settings → Houses). At install, Gladys asks you to allow the integration to read it. If your panels are somewhere else, you will type their coordinates in the configuration instead.
Have the description of your panels at hand:
- their peak power: the sum of the powers printed on their labels (10 panels of 400 W = 4 kWp);
- their tilt: 0° flat, 90° vertical, often 30° to 45° on a pitched roof;
- their orientation: the direction they face, as on a compass (180° = south).
Configuration
Open Integrations → Open-Meteo Forecast Solar → Configuration:
| Field | What to type |
|---|---|
| Peak power (kWp) | Total peak power of the panels, in kilowatts. |
| Tilt (°) | 0 = flat, 90 = vertical. Default 30. |
| Orientation (°) | 0 = north, 90 = east, 180 = south, 270 = west. Default 180. |
| System losses (%) | Inverter, cables, dirt, ageing. Default 14. Lower it if the estimates are below your real output. |
| Production threshold (W) | The power used by the "Estimated production crosses the threshold" scene trigger. Default 1000 W. |
| Forecast refresh (min) | Minutes between two calls to Open-Meteo, 15 minimum. Default 30. |
| Latitude / Longitude | Only for panels away from your house. Leave both empty to use the location of your Gladys house. |
Save, then click Test the forecast: the answer shows the estimated production of today and tomorrow, and the peak of the day. Then open the Discovery tab and add the Solar forecast device.
The device
| Feature | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Estimated power now (W) | What the panels should produce at this moment. |
| Estimated power next hour (W) | The average power expected over the next 60 minutes. |
| Estimated peak power today (W) | The highest power of the day. |
| Estimated production today (kWh) | The whole day, from midnight to midnight. |
| Estimated production left today (kWh) | What is still to come today. |
| Estimated production tomorrow (kWh) | The whole of tomorrow. |
The power is recomputed every minute; Open-Meteo is called again at the refresh interval of the configuration. These are forecasts: they are never counted as real production by the Gladys energy monitoring.
Scenes
The integration adds its own cards to the scene editor, under the Integrations category.
Triggers
- Estimated production crosses the threshold — starts the scene when the estimated power
goes above, or back below, the threshold of the configuration. Pick Goes above or Goes
below (or leave it empty for both). The scene can read
{{triggerEvent.data.power}}(estimated power, W),{{triggerEvent.data.threshold}}and{{triggerEvent.data.direction}}(aboveorbelow). - Solar forecast updated — starts the scene each time a new forecast arrives (at the
refresh interval). Variables:
energy_today,energy_remaining_today,energy_tomorrow(kWh),peak_power_today(W) andpeak_time_today(HH:MM).
Actions
- Get the solar forecast — gives the current figures to the following actions: power now,
next hour and peak (W), production today, left today and tomorrow (kWh), time of the peak.
Turn on Call Open-Meteo first to fetch a fresh forecast before answering.
availableis false when there is no forecast yet. - Find the sunniest time slot — finds the window of a given duration (rounded to the
quarter of an hour) with the highest estimated production, today (from now on) or
tomorrow. Outputs:
found,startandend(HH:MM),energy(kWh) andaverage_power(W).
Example: every evening at 21:00, run Find the sunniest time slot (3 hours, tomorrow), then send yourself a message "Run the dishwasher tomorrow between {{0.0.start}} and {{0.0.end}}".
Dashboard
Edit a dashboard, add the Solar forecast widget. It shows the estimated power now and the production of today and tomorrow (live), the production curve of both days with the peak, what is left today, your installation, its location and the time of the last update. The Refresh button calls Open-Meteo at once.
Troubleshooting
- "No location": set the location of your house in Settings → Houses, or type a latitude and a longitude in the configuration.
- "Open-Meteo could not be reached": Gladys has no internet access, or Open-Meteo is down. The last forecast stays displayed (orange dot on the device badge) and the integration tries again every 5 minutes.
- The estimates are always too high or too low: adjust the System losses. Shading and snow are not taken into account.
- The integration logs are in Settings → Integrations → Open-Meteo Forecast Solar → Logs.
Credits
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com, under CC BY 4.0. The free Open-Meteo API is for non-commercial use.
Configuration settings
These are the settings Open-Meteo Forecast Solar asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getting started | section | No | Estimates what your solar panels will produce, from the free Open-Meteo weather forecast: no account, no API key. Describe your panels below. The location of your Gladys house is used unless you type other coordinates. |
| Peak power (kWp) | number | Yes | Total peak power of the panels, in kilowatts: the sum of the powers printed on their labels (10 panels of 400 W = 4 kWp). |
| Tilt (°) | number | No | Angle of the panels from the horizontal: 0 = flat, 90 = vertical. A pitched roof is often between 30 and 45. |
| Orientation (°) | number | No | Direction the panels face, as on a compass: 0 = north, 90 = east, 180 = south, 270 = west. |
| System losses (%) | number | No | Inverter, cables, dirt and ageing. 14 % is a common value; lower it if the estimates are below your real production. |
| Production threshold (W) | number | No | Estimated power that fires the "Estimated production crosses the threshold" scene trigger, going up or down. |
| Forecast refresh (min) | number | No | Minutes between two calls to Open-Meteo, 15 minimum. The estimated power itself is recomputed every minute. |
| Other location (optional) | section | No | Leave both fields empty to use the location of your Gladys house. Fill them in for panels somewhere else. |
| Latitude | number | No | |
| Longitude | number | No |
How to install Open-Meteo Forecast Solar in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Open-Meteo 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-openmeteoforecastsolar:0.0.1), 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-openmeteoforecastsolar.
Open-Meteo 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
Open-Meteo 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