Skip to content

v2: Replace NWS wind forecast with NREL NSRDB or Forecast.Solar for solar irradiance #4

Description

@mokahlo

Goal

Use a more accurate solar irradiance forecast for the smart controller's predictive fold logic.

Current state

We use NWS (api.weather.gov) for wind and temperature forecast. NWS doesn't give us solar irradiance directly.

Why upgrade

  • NREL NSRDB (National Solar Radiation Database) provides historical + typical-year solar irradiance for any US location. Free for research, paid for production.
  • Forecast.Solar is a free (no account needed for basic tier) cloud-based forecast that uses PVGIS data.
  • akgang's ESP32 MPPT controller uses NASA POWER + OpenWeatherMap forecasts; same idea, different sources.

Reference

Scope

  • Add a solar irradiance forecast to the smart controller's decision stack
  • Use it to predict DLI for the day, drive the grow light DLI-top-up mode
  • Compare NWS-derived DLI estimate vs Forecast.Solar vs NSRDB
  • Pick one (Forecast.Solar is easiest — REST API, no key, free)
  • Implement in firmware

Done when

Smart controller has access to a daily solar forecast, uses it for the grow light top-up mode.

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions