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Hourly API

The Hourly microservice API returns time series analysis-ready data responses for solar and meteorological data to be used directly by applications.

Additional Data Specifications: - Provides parameters by hour with average values. - All parameters are available in their original source spatial resolution. - Precipitation values will be shown in mm/hour.

Formats

Formats Available Notes
NetCDF Yes
ASCII Yes
JSON Yes
CSV Yes
EPW Yes The EnergyPlus Weather File is only available for the SB Community.
EPW (CSV) Yes The EnergyPlus Weather File is only available for the SB Community.

Time Standards

The Hourly API provides two different time standards Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) and Local Solar Time (LST). The LST is created on-the-fly within the API from the hourly POWER data archive, stored in UTC, and produced by the POWER Near Real Time (NRT) processing system. To provide the LST time standard, an offset is computed by comparing the longitude to the 15-degree swath bands. This offset is used to change the hourly time dimension in the API's response when LST time is requested. If the UTC time is requested the time dimension is returned with no changes.

POWER provides two different time standards:

  • Universal Time Coordinated (UTC): The most commonly accepted time standard worldwide.
  • Local Solar Time (LST): A 15-degree swath that represents solar noon at the middle longitude of the swath.
  • Hourly UTC and LST time standards data are available from 2001/01/01 to Near Real Time (NRT)
  • Hourly API defaults to providing LST; to change the time standard please include time-standard=UTC or time-standard=LST in the API request URL.
  • The valid time range for the EPW format is only available from 2000/01/01 to near real time. If a start time is selected before 2000/01/01, the request will be modified to start at 2000/01/01.

Local Solar Time (LST)

The Local Solar Time (LST) time zone given is based upon longitude and may not match the actual local time zone as assigned by the location's government.

Limitations

Parameters

A maximum of 15 parameters can currently be requested in one submission.

Wind Elevation and Custom Surface

  1. This parameter is only available under the "Point" spatial option.
  2. Wind Elevation values in Meters are required to be between 10m and 300m.
  3. If you provide a correct wind surface alias, please include a surface elevation with the request.

For a list of wind surface aliases, please use this System API Request. For more information, please reference the Manager Documentation.

Site Elevation

If you wish to pass your own site elevation (in meters), you will receive a corrected atmospheric pressure value upon adjustment to the elevation you provided.

  1. This parameter is only available under the "Point" spatial option.
  2. Site Elevation site-elevation values are in Meters.

Request Structure

  • The request arguments can be in any order after the question mark.
  • A single parameter or a list of parameters can be selected with one of the following list separators: ',' or '%2C'.

Examples

To help construct and test your API requests, please use the API Pages for the POWER Hourly API and POWER Manager API.

Point

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/api/temporal/hourly/point?parameters=T2M&community=SB&longitude=0&latitude=0&start=20170101&end=20170102&format=CSV

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/api/temporal/hourly/point?parameters=WS10M,WD10M,T2MDEW,T2MWET,T2M,V10M,RH2M,PS,PRECTOT,QV2M,U10M&community=SB&longitude=0&latitude=0&start=20170101&end=20170102&format=CSV

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/api/temporal/hourly/point?parameters=T2M&community=SB&longitude=0&latitude=0&start=20170101&end=20170102&format=JSON&site-elevation=50

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/api/temporal/hourly/point?parameters=T2M&community=AG&longitude=0&latitude=0&start=20170101&end=20170102&format=ASCII&wind-elevation=50

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/api/temporal/hourly/point?parameters=T2M&community=AG&longitude=0&latitude=0&start=20170101&end=20170102&format=ASCII&wind-surface=SeaIce&wind-elevation=50