In the world of Solar Irradiance there are great services out there producing awesome data for solar projects.
One of my favourites is Solcast, they do a cracking job democratising Solar Data.
So kudos to its founders Dr. Nicholas Engerer and James Luffman.
Solcast has two big groups: historical & TMY and live & forecast solar data. You can have static data results or live ones, connected to your systems via a pretty handy API toolkit.In addition to other cool stuff, you can create a data request for historical data very similar to our search engine. I’ve prepared a quick table to what’s on offer, how it compares with ours.
Historical Data
| Solarcast | SolarBI | |
|---|---|---|
| Available Date Range | 1/1/2007 to 4/2/2020 | 1/1/1990 to 1/12/2019 |
| Granularity | 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 minutes | Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annual |
| Parameters | GHI, DNI, EBH, DHI, air temp, zenith, azimuth, cloud opacity, dewpoint, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, precipitable water, snow depth, surface pressure. |
Default DNI, GHI and upto 3 year Generation |
Solcast and SolarBI are different products, but in historical data, we overlap just enough to make interesting. So Ladies and Gentlemen start your engines!
The Terms
- Dates : 1/1/2007 – 1/7/2019
- Granularity : Hourly/60 mins
- Parameters : GHI/DNI
*SolarBI default calculates 3 years of Generation, but we don’t count it because Solcast doesn’t have an equivalent
and……………….
………….GO GO GO GO GO
| Solcast | SolarBI | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | forecast 9.25 minutes | actual 6 minutes |
| Output Format | CSV, Solcast, PVsyst | CSV |
| Cost | $400USD Once off payment or $150 when $250 credit is its applied | $19AUD per month for 7 searches (~$2.8AUD per advanced search)or $0AUD on ours Free Trial |
Truth be told, we didn’t pay the $400USD to confirm the speed or compare the data, but we use their estimate delivery time. Who won? You decide. We like them, and we hope you do too! I am super impressed with the work that the Solcast team has done. By far the most complete solution out there – it’s intense, detailed, and offer a wide range of products. Well Done, Well done!!
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Cheers to all Oscar
