B-Mod
Solar Enthusiast
Works ok, can set to see clouds forecasts or satellite views
Source for predicting cloud cover?
- Thread starter rhino
- Start date
Works ok, can set to see clouds forecasts or satellite views
marionw
Solar Enthusiast
Another link you might take a look at
Aviation Weather Center
Meterological Aerodrome Reports (METAR)
I have automated the pulling of weather reports as reported by several local airports for use in another project
Aviation Weather Center
Meterological Aerodrome Reports (METAR)
I have automated the pulling of weather reports as reported by several local airports for use in another project
marionw
Solar Enthusiast
And if you really want to get technical do an internet search on:
Nooelec GOES Weather Satellite RTL-SDR Bundle
Nooelec GOES Weather Satellite RTL-SDR Bundle
Kiwi2000
Solar Enthusiast
I use this to see what's coming...
www.radar-live.com
CLOUD RADAR - Satelitte cloud cover map
Satellite photos with cloud cover map. Cloud radar with current cloud coverage and movement. Forecast for the next days. Sky radar live.
I use https://solcast.com/ Although based in Australia, they have forecasts for the whole world (even the US). There is a free API where you can register one location, give it some details about your array and it will give you predictions for hourly kWh generated for the next day.
Needing accurate forecasts is crucial for me. I have plenty of solar/battery for critical loads, but want to use my batteries as much as possible for electric winter heat and forecasts play a key role in this. I will check out Solcast - thank you for link...
Okay.. I tried solcast and actually looks pretty useful.. Although it placed my array in wrong location by about 30 miles and for some reason they have restriction preventing you from changing location of it. It actually picked up that it was sunny for good portion of day yesterday and partly sunny the day before:
From Victron VRM:
From Victron VRM:
NWS does provide an hour-by-hour cloud cover forecast. You can get this data in xml format as well. Not going to help if forecasting is particularly difficult for your area (I am Front Range, CO, and the mountain wave clouds or lack of are notoriously difficult to forecast on certain days).
3rd pane down, blue line. don't recall if 0 is clear or 100 is clear
or as a table
3rd pane down, blue line. don't recall if 0 is clear or 100 is clear
or as a table
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
I think all this stuff is neat, but the bottom line is you want to make sure you have enough reserve to make it thru the dry spell, and a big enough storage tank to hold the reserve. So weather is helpful if you lack adequate storage and the production ability to fill it in a timely manner, and are trying to keep reserves for later. I decided to work purely from the SOC of my storage system. When my reserve hits 80% I consider it full, at which point I have no restrictions. If it falls below 40% then I don't allow any elective use. The objective after all is to have enough power when you are not producing. When the weather was crappy for 2 days straight I just shut off the inverters and let the batteries take everything for the next day. I could have let it flip-flop on it's own, didn't see the point but it wouldn't have changed the net results either way.
Not sure there is much ROI on watching the weather, but it sounds fun.
Not sure there is much ROI on watching the weather, but it sounds fun.
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Not sure there is much ROI on watching the weather, but it sounds fun.
Return on irradiance?
Return on insolation?
It's not always that simple if you are trying to be off-grid. In my specific case it is to charge another new battery bank up which does not need to happen now and I do not want to deplete my current one any more then necessary when we keep having lots of cloud cover. Knowing if it was in fact going to be sunny tomorrow would mean I could leave the new battery charging.. otherwise I wouldn't.I think all this stuff is neat, but the bottom line is you want to make sure you have enough reserve to make it thru the dry spell, and a big enough storage tank to hold the reserve. So weather is helpful if you lack adequate storage and the production ability to fill it in a timely manner, and are trying to keep reserves for later. I decided to work purely from the SOC of my storage system. When my reserve hits 80% I consider it full, at which point I have no restrictions. If it falls below 40% then I don't allow any elective use. The objective after all is to have enough power when you are not producing. When the weather was crappy for 2 days straight I just shut off the inverters and let the batteries take everything for the next day. I could have let it flip-flop on it's own, didn't see the point but it wouldn't have changed the net results either way.
Not sure there is much ROI on watching the weather, but it sounds fun.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that would take different actions if they have some confidence it will be sunny tomorrow for instance and don't have grid for backup or want to waste generator fuel.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
I disagree, I think it can be simple, but your setup can be as complicated as you make it for whatever the reason. "If I could be sure they are bringing me 10 gallons of fuel tomorrow, then I'll put the 10 gallons of fuel I got today in the truck instead of the car, otherwise the car is going to run out of fuel." I get it, I just don't get it anymore. I'll fill the car to 3/4 and then fill the truck to 3/4, then top them off as the fuel is delivered. In the case of my solar it's all one system. Putting energy in battery A or battery B is irrelevant to me since they are all available, at which point it's about reserve. I don't have enough reserve to willy-nilly charge my EV, so I don't unless my PV batteries are charged to a desired threshold first.
To your point, If I knew sunshine was going to be able to fill my batteries tomorrow from 20 to 100% that would be useful, as I could tap them down to 20 and charge the car. What this really means though is it would allow me to not defer charging the car until the next day. If the latter is an issue, that would have me getting more reserve capacity, and perhaps more production to fill it more quickly. There is a tipping point with this, I'm working on stabilizing my setup, after which I will add a modest amount of capacity and a significant amount of reserves. I think the real objective is to get it to a game of simple reserves management. YMMV, I was heading down the weather path until I got my second battery rack, and the light bulb popped on. Of course it's only money.
I think that's the point. If you are near your extremes you either need to pile a lot of money into more battery banks so that you can cover the extremes or simply have better load management/human behavior.
ksmithaz1
Solar / EV Junkie
I guess my point is, if I know I'm not going to get enough fuel tomorrow to meet my needs and it's a problem, all the load management in the world is not going to solve it long term. Running the clothes dryer today because I read a weather report, and I know I'll have enough tomorrow to re-fill the batteries vs not running the clothes dryer until the batteries are mostly full, which is simpler and more reliable than trusting a weather report.
One of the things I'm doing is testing requirements for an off-grid land purchase, worrying about favorable weather seems sub-optimal, I think I want to prioritize my power-plant to be as robust as possible if it is critical. Thus at some point you break down and turn on the genny. At some point the cost of doin' business is just gonna get paid. I think load management and behavior should be dictated by your reserve capacity not a possible future realization of production.
That being said, I do look at the weather a lot. . .
One of the things I'm doing is testing requirements for an off-grid land purchase, worrying about favorable weather seems sub-optimal, I think I want to prioritize my power-plant to be as robust as possible if it is critical. Thus at some point you break down and turn on the genny. At some point the cost of doin' business is just gonna get paid. I think load management and behavior should be dictated by your reserve capacity not a possible future realization of production.
That being said, I do look at the weather a lot. . .
Return on invested time and attention, I think.Return on irradiance?
Return on insolation?
I am in Wisconsin and off-grid and my only other heating source besides solar electric is a wood stove. So, my return on investment for watching the weather and using my batteries to heat with is less firewood to cut, stack, store, split, haul inside, and fuss with every few hours (and have my sleep disturbed when I need to wake up and feed the fire). Also less wear and tear on my tractor, chainsaw, and body...I think all this stuff is neat, but the bottom line is you want to make sure you have enough reserve to make it thru the dry spell, and a big enough storage tank to hold the reserve. So weather is helpful if you lack adequate storage and the production ability to fill it in a timely manner, and are trying to keep reserves for later. I decided to work purely from the SOC of my storage system. When my reserve hits 80% I consider it full, at which point I have no restrictions. If it falls below 40% then I don't allow any elective use. The objective after all is to have enough power when you are not producing. When the weather was crappy for 2 days straight I just shut off the inverters and let the batteries take everything for the next day. I could have let it flip-flop on it's own, didn't see the point but it wouldn't have changed the net results either way.
Not sure there is much ROI on watching the weather, but it sounds fun.
The less time and more accurately I can forecast solar production, the higher my ROI....
Every situation is different...
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
On a seasonal basis, I can see value. However, on a daily basis, I question the logic of your position. This implies that you only have a day or two of wood on hand. This seems inconsistent with typical practices of those that use wood for heat. Wear and tear seem like a red herring as you're going to have to do it at some level regardless of the weather, and generating more fuel at one time generally maximizes the economy.
My neighbor heats his 3200 sq-ft timber frame with SIPS (insane insulation) almost exclusively with a wood burning stove. He can supplement with a propane furnace if he needs to, but that is used almost exclusively to maintain ~50°F when they leave the house for about a week. He keeps an entire season's worth of wood on hand, so the day to day consumption of wood and how it relates to the weather is irrelevant.
My other neighbor has a smaller timber frame and a couple of shed to house conversions with wood burning stoves. They too have a substantial supply of wood on hand.
In both cases, they spend a few days per year dedicated to harvesting and processing wood. Sure, this isn't Wisconsin, but ENE AZ at 6500 ft is pretty chilly. This morning's low was 16, and it's 34 now.
It seems to make more sense to have a large wood "battery" to draw from when needed. Much like modern production line, time spend generating larger quantities of an item generally maximize the benefit of time spent rather than doing it many more times with smaller yields at lower efficiency.
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