EDITED to UPDATE - this feature is now live.
All the questions we received should now be answered here in this Victron Blog article - https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2023/07/05/new-vrm-solar-production-forecast-feature/
Thanks to all those who contributed to the public testing stage.
Whilst I appreciate the forecast data comes externally from Solcast and " prediction " of UK weather can be tricky , I quite often get days where the forecast vs actual produced figures are way off.
If it is a very obvious not a cloud in the sky type of weather next few days , confirmed by your usual other weather forecast sources as well , sure , forecast from Solcast and in VRM pretty much spot on.
However , throw some cloudy / rainy type weather in , figures are just not right. In my experience, usual difference around 30% - 40% out on forecast vs actual.
Yesterday was a record , 22.4 kWh forecasted vs 10 kWh actually produced.
Possible to keep the forecasted figures on each day ( figure thats showing before the solar production begins for the day ) in VRM , so we can actually compare and assess suitability to use this feature for charging algorithms etc. over a period of time ?
Victron's implementation is fantastic , but I guess feature is only as good as the data source.
Please find attached figures from yesterday on VRM.
For interest, can there be a way to see when actual solar overshoots predicted solar as you can with undershot predictions? Same with usage perhaps but solar would be key. Love that we can turn off the graphs with the Key: icons. Thanks to a great team of Engineers.
Hello, I'm not having any luck seeing a forecast on the dashboard for today. I do get a forecast for future days on the dashboard and the widget on the advanced page. What needs to be done to have the forecast for the balance of today manifest on the dashboard? Thank you.
Today: no forecast for the balance of today.
Future days: forecast is displayed.
Can you confirm that this has now been resolved?
Dear Victron
I use dynamic ess. Everything is working fine except the forecast button is not visable at all in dashboard. Tomorrow and other future days are also empty. My dynamic ess dashboard do also not have a working forecast view. The dynamic ess algoritm is working fine.
My location is set. In cant find anywhere what to do. Do you have a solution?
Greetings
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) & @Damionjr,
3 hours after removing the GPS mouse and setting the position manually, I got the VRM solar production forecast back:
That's nice,
but:
My installation is on a sailing boat, so now I can't use the GPS functionallity in the VRM portal like geofence and Download the GPS tracks:
Please, can you make it possible that this 2 functionallity are working both at the same time?
This would be great.
Regards,
Gerd
Hi, thank you so much ; I am testing... wait & see for feedback
During these few days (from 01/07 to 05/07), I have tested the beta version for the VRM solar forecast.
Please find hereafter my comments and the recorded data (if you need I can send you all screen shots with timestamp) :
1-Layout
- Could you please show smaler numbers for the 4 items : To Grid, From Grid, Consumption, Solar ?
Please use same heigth as main items above GRID, LOADS, INVERTER, ....
- Could you also reduce space of the gaps as shown on picture ?
In order to have all information on the screen, without having to roll down and up.
2-Content
- No need to write "recorded" 4 times. Please remove "recorded"
- just write "Forecast" and "Total" using italic characters : "Forecast" and "Total"
3-Accuracy
- I noticed that every hour at hh:01 forecast is updated. Could you please update the numbers at hh:00 ? or better at hh-1:59 ? In order that users who check will use good numbers at hh:00 ; bacause actualy the numbers at hh:00 are changed at hh:01.
- accuracy is better than forecast that I receive on my Home Assistant with the integration= Forecast.Solar. Gapsolar forecast records RG.txt = between 2 and 3 times less for Victron = VERY GOOD for Victron VRM Solar Forecast
4-New Wish
- could you add the solar forecast for Tomorrow ; this will be usefull for users in order for them to manage loads and battery, by anticipating the next day weather
THANKS IN ADVANCE
Amazing feature !
Then you can add an option to set a low SOC battery limit depending on the solar kWh forecast ?
Blue Power Best !
A great new feature ! It will be interesting to see how it copes with being on a boat at anchor and the shifting wind conditions that can change the orientation of the panels to the sun.
If you change the location, the orientation or the shading than the forecast will be wrong or at last not very accurate.
There is some machine learning involved to determine the production from expected irradiance. If Panel orientation keeps changing, let alone location, I would not expect overly accurate forecasts.
That said, if it is moored in the same spot and orientates to prevailing winds, which tend to be fairly consistent, then perhaps the results might be better than expected.
Looking good so far - we are mid winter in Sydney so 2kw is probably about right. Wind is a consistent southerly so boat panels will be in full sun. 
One word
Fantastic!
thank you.
Ok i know that was three words:)
Working well with my RS 450/100s.
Working well here. Using SMA inverter via ET112. No mppt`s fitted.
Will the algorithm be extended to forecast to the next day in future. That will be very useful.
Nice feature.
Is this your start in developing pv forecast depending controls? Like:
- feed in control to cut off noonday feed in peeks?
- advanced Battery life controlling SoC based on pv forecast
- loading battery from grid at night (when grid power is cheap) when pv forecast for the following day ist too small
Hi! That is a fantastic new feature :) Thank You!
I have a question regarding multiple Solar Arrays in one system.
I am using:
2 x Rs 450/100
2 x Fronius
3 x Hoymiles
Can I expect my system to receive accurate data in the future?
Or will the Fronius and Hoymiles be "greyed out" ?
As long as the Hoymiles data is being recognised as solar data in VRM (via Sunspec or an energy meter) it should be ok as well.
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) Noticed this a little while ago on beta VRM and got excited to see it but it always read 0 for the forecast, it still only reads 0.
Location has always been set and the site is over a year old. 169174
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) @Barbara (Victron Energy) so this worked yesterday but not today? The hide forecast button is there for a split second when the page loads then disappears.
The feature is now being deployed to production - we expect once that is complete you should see the button again on the normal VRM site.
Very nice start to a potential great feature.
As others pointed out , forecast definitely needs to be extended to at least day ahead to decide and make use of cheaper electricity rates night before.
If logic algorittms can be set in Node Red too , based on SoC vs Next days forecast etc for charging , so this can be all automated based on users rules , well, that would make it 10/10 !!
I have just posted an update to the original post with more information about using this feature with Node-RED
i just set my site location, but it does not work...
Is there a delay time, after setting the location for it to work?
On my brothers installation the forecast works right away, but he had set this location already months before.
(we are both using Multiplus II and MPPT RS450/100 and some PV-Inverters)
There is an issue at the solar graphics. The colors are not matching.
...great Feature, thank you!
I am going to compare the forecast with my existing one from solcast, which is actually pretty precise, as it is also tuned with previous measurements.
Q: Can we also have a widget/view in the advanced view, mabe along the PV/Solar yield?
Here is an example from my solar yield + solcast forecast on a typical, not so cloudy day...love to see something like that in the advanced view section in VRM.
...keep up the good work!
regards,
hominidae
More advanced widgets using this data will be available in the future.
Yes, I've seen that, but what I'd prefer is a widget with forecasted/estimated PV-Power (W from the inverter/MPPT), as irradiance is W/square-meter.
Forecast is down
This becomes useful to me (and I suspect a lot of other people with cheap overnight tariffs) when it includes predictions for tomorrow.
Also I have an RS, so support for that as well in my case would be handy although at present I'm using an external MPPT so that's not an issue for me yet (until I wire in the extra panels going on my garage roof).
Are there plans to add "tomorrow's forecast"?
That said, superb stuff. Really like the feature and the prediction seems accurate so far.
Hi @Semlohnhoj
from the soon to be published blog article;
"Testing is already well underway for how this new functionality can extended further, such as longer range forecasts..."
1. Will Forecast be only to the end of day or for next 24h or to the end of next day?
2. Will forecast take into account any weather forecast?
2. yes, the forecast takes into account weather via the solcast weather satellite and irradiance prediction service
This is a fantastic idea. Problem is, my PV system was installed way before by Quattro. Is there a way to input the basic spec of my PV system so that it will show a forecast? (Obviously, it won't be able to monitor the actual production.)
Thanks.
Hi!
Great feature! Have been looking for a reliable source for this data for some time and to have it "baked-in" now with Victron equipment is great.
Just one request that would make this data A LOT more useful to those of us with custom integrations and software working in concert with Victron equipment. Can we get this data from the solar projections published on the MQTT bus or available on the an accessible API endpoint somewhere so that we can periodically query this forecast data for other decisions we might want to make with advanced Dynamic ESS installations? Is this data already available somewhere and if so could someone point me where to find/query it ?
Thanks!
Can't wait for having forcast solar @+24H
Hi,
I set location 3 days ago, the forecast is not working. The button is greyed out.
Thanks for your help
Have a good day!
yes, I activated the VRM bidirectional communication, then it worked.
see also the parallel thread
My forecast for today has been missing from the portal for several days now. It was working just fine. My location setting is correct. Forecast for tomorrow is working.
Hi, thank you for the report. We today found a bug that affected new enabled sites; its fixed; please if you don't see any data by tomorrow then ring the alarm bell again.
Have a good day!
Forecast graph is still not showing forecast for today on either the beta or standard VRM site
I have discovered that if I turn on “VRM two-way communication“ in the Remote Console, then the forecast will show up in the graph the next time the system updates. Hope this helps in the discovery process.
Turning off the option results in the forecast disappearing again but not immediately. Only after I change my graph view and then go back to today view. Or it also disappears by simply refreshing the page in my browser. I’m guessing some type of issue with a portal ID cache/buffer??
EDIT: I may have discovered that it has something to do with login process and not having “Stay signed-in“ enabled. So it does appear to be a browser cache issue with using safari on iOS devices possibly.
I can confirm that production forecast works again now without 2-way comms being active. Thank you!
I know that consumption forecast is still being worked on so it’s pointless to bring up any issues with it on this thread, so I won’t. Especially the fact that the consumption forecast also disappears. ;-)
Hello, personally I don't like the new pastel colors of the dashboard tiles at all
Comparison from my program GbbVictronWeb.gbbsoft.pl: "VRM forecast versus Real" and "Solcast forecast versus Real" on my location. "Corrected" is corrected forecast based on average hour different from last 28 days.
Just so that I read the table correct - what you are saying is that VRM forecasts are more correct than Solcast forecasts in the dataset you based that on?
Will you SaaS service produce the same report for me (comparison between Solcast & VRM on historic data) if I hook up my system to your Saas? If so - Do I need to be connected for 28 days or will your system fetch history from both sources on day one?
/Kaj
Hello,
nice update for solar production forecast!! (in Beta Mode)
But today it's quite inaccurate. If i look out of the window my own forecast for the rest of the day is continuously raining and 0 sun hours. So it will be very hard to get the missing 49.7 kWh.
Great feature!
Unfortunately, I'm forced to use a "fake" PV inverter in order to "map" my 3rd party ESS (Senec) into VRM. Therefore, the predicted value are wrong for me.
It would be great if Victron could do something to allow other kind of ESS to be integrated in order to avoid this problem. Maybe invent a new kind of device class on dbus?
VRM date range doesn't seem to be saving
I used to set a range and that was saved until I changed it. It now resets each time I reload the page.
So, how long does it take for the forecast to become active? I added the geo-data for the installation almost 2 days ago and the system still says "collecting data" when I click on the forecast button in the VRM portal.
It takes 48 hours for the initial forecast to become active, and then will continue to calibrate over a rolling 28 day window.
Hello @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ,
I had been enjoying the forecast feature for the past month or so And found that, over time, it became more and more accurate.
Unfortunately, it stopped working about a week ago, and I can’t find the issue.
My installation and VRM profile have been active for the last two years. I have followed all the instruction issued in the last release notes.
Is there anything else you can suggest i look into? Venus OS firmware is the only firmware I haven’t updated. I am currently running 3.0, as each attempt to install the last two updates resulted in NODE-RED issues, with a rollback to 3.0 being the only solution that works.
Irradence logging is active, two communication is on.
Hello @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager),
it's the same on my installation.
I deleted my installation and registered it again more than 72 hours ago, but it's not showing the forecast on the dashboard window:
Interestingly I see the forcast in the Solar Irradiance widget on the advanced tab:
Please, can you help?
Regards, Gerd
Is there no other solution other than removing the gps?
It was changed recently because people who were moving were getting inaccurate results because it is location dependant, so it was decided that when an installation moves that we should reset the estimate data.
Thanks @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) but why can I see the correct values in the Solar Irradiance widget in the avanced tab?
It is only one of the factors that is used as an input to calculate your estimated solar production (which requires more time and data than just the irradiance forecast).
Hello @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) & @Damionjr,
Perhaps it will be helpful for you to know that I'm using GPS mouse.
If you need more infos, please tell us.
Regards,
Gerd
I am also using a GPS mouse and happy to share my installation if that helps.
Damion
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager)
Another observation is that I can see forecast data on the iPhone VRM widget just not when viewing the VRM portal.
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager)
Can we get this nice VRM widgets also for Android users?
Good morning
@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager)
& @Damionjr,
This morning I noticed the menu item Diagnostics, maybe it's new or I didn't noticed it until now:
Is it helpful for you to send it to you?
I don't want to post it here, because the Diagnostics data includes private data like serial numbers.
Regards,
Gerd
Perhaps also interested, the installation of my neighbor without GPS mouse but the same manual location settings works fine:
Perhaps small location differences via the GPS mouse will detect a new location and permanently restarts the "Collecting solar irradiance data for forecast" from new?
Maybe I don't know.
The developers are looking if this can be improved for minor changes.
Great, perhaps they can put a virtual circle from e.g. 1 km around the GPS location, similar to geofence.
But why was it working for @Damionjr until +/- 1 week ago? Did the developers change something?
Yes, it was changed as old inaccurate solar production estimates were being shown for systems that had changed location.
The diagnostics page link appearing in the navigation bar was a bug that has now been fixed.
If you still want to see the diagnostics info, you can by adding the /diagnostics as a suffix to the URL of your site.
what a nice VRM widget on your iPhone, I don't have it on my Android, I miss it.
On my Samsung Galaxy S10+ I only have these 8 widgets:
None of these 8 widgets are so nice like the widget on IOS.
@Kaj Lehtinen: Do you have more or other widgets on Android 13?
Regards,
Gerd
When you add them to your screen you need to stretch them out so they are larger. They then show the extra information.
When first added:
After enlarging:
Hi @kocki,
The procedure to see the full range of vrm app widgets on android is a little bit different to iOS.
Once you add the widget, it should be possible to 'expand' it to show more information.
Here is a video to demonstrate:
Hi @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager),
You are Great!!!, Thanks, it works:
I attached my GPS mouse +/- 2 days ago, so I don't see the solar forcast in the moment in the Windows App.
But I see the solar forecast on the Android widget, how can it be?
Regards,
Gerd
The info required is still there under the covers (and then available via the API), but we hide it when we know (or think that we know) it is more likely to be inaccurate. This logic of when to hide and when to show that applies to the dashboard hasn't been applied to the phone app widgets, and might not be, unless enough people are complaining about it.
Hi @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager),
I like your features !!!, Thanks.
And for me it is accurate.
I'm testing this so maybe I can use it at home. However, I have no idea how the forecast is calculated.
Yesterday the prediction was 14.40KWh. At the end of the day I had 22.5KW.
Today the prediction was 13.7KWh, but it looks like I will never reach this.
Is it just sunrise-sunset or does it really take the weather into account?
