Inspiration

When a house with solar panels generates the most electricity around noon, but uses the most energy after this time, it causes homeowners to have to pay higher prices buying energy from the grid. It would be most optimal to use electricity when the solar panels are producing.

What it does

It calculates the solar energy a home produces compared to an estimated energy demand of the home (hourly). A graph is then displayed of the net energy (Produced - Demand).

How we built it

An open-meteo API was used to get date, temperature and shortwave radiation data. Then, 2 simple functions were called to determine solar energy produced and the houses demand. The functions included factors such as time of day and temperature. This python script was put in a github repo where github actions was used to run the script every day at midnight and update the static page displaying the graph.

Challenges we ran into

Configuring and testing the automation took a lot of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning pandas basics and github actions very quickly.

What we learned

How to use automation and API's.

What's next for Solar Panel Electricity Usage Time Optimizer

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