FLEXMEASURES-WEATHER - a plugin for FlexMeasures to integrate weather forecasts

This plugin currently supports two Weather API services: OpenWeatherMap One Call API and Weather API. The configuration is controlled via your FlexMeasures config file.

Usage

To register a new weather sensor:

flexmeasures weather register-weather-sensor --name "wind speed" --latitude 30 --longitude 40

Currently supported: wind speed, temperature & irradiance.

To collect weather forecasts:

flexmeasures weather get-weather-forecasts --location 30,40

This saves forecasts for your registered sensors in the database.

Use the `--help`` option for more options, e.g. for specifying two locations and requesting that a number of weather stations cover the bounding box between them (where the locations represent top left and bottom right).

Notes about weather sensor setup:

• Weather sensors are public assets in FlexMeasures. They are accessible by all accounts on a FlexMeasures server.
• The resolution is one hour. Weather also supports minutely data within the upcoming hour(s), but that is not supported here.

An alternative usage is to save raw results in JSON files (for later processing), like this:

flexmeasures weather get-weather-forecasts --location 30,40 --store-as-json-files --region somewhere

This saves the complete response from the Weather Provider in a local folder (i.e. no sensor registration needed, this is a direct way to use Weather APIs, without FlexMeasures integration). region will become a subfolder.

Finally, note that these APIs allow free calls, but not without limits. For instance, currently 1000 free calls per day can be made to the OpenWeatherMap API, so you can make a call every 15 minutes for up to 10 locations or every hour for up to 40 locations (or get a paid account).

Setup

Installation

To add as plugin to an existing FlexMeasures system, add "/path/to/flexmeasures-weather-repo/flexmeasures_weather" to your FlexMeasures config file, using the FLEXMEASURES_PLUGINS setting (a list).

Alternatively, if you installed this plugin as a package (e.g. via python setup.py install, pip install -e or pip install flexmeasures_weather after this project is on Pypi), then "flexmeasures_weather" suffices.

To enable weather forecast functionality, two PostgreSQL extensions must be installed. Run the following SQL commands in your database:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS cube;
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS earthdistance;

These extensions provide support for geographical calculations such as ll_to_earth and earth_distance, which we use to find the nearest weather station asset.

Configuration

Add the following entries to your config:

# Select the weather provider to use: "OWM" (OpenWeatherMap) or "WAPI" (Weather API)
WEATHER_PROVIDER = OWM

# API key for the selected weather provider
WEATHERAPI_KEY = your-api-key-here

# Name to register the weather data source in FlexMeasures. The default is 'Weather'.
# Examples: "OpenWeatherMap" (for backwards compatibility with the OWM plugin).
WEATHER_DATA_SOURCE_NAME = 'OpenWeatherMap'

# File path to store weather data in JSON format
WEATHER_FILE_PATH_LOCATION = /path/to/weather_output.json

Extending to Other Weather API Services

To expand the plugin's coverage to additional weather API services:

1. Update the configuration
   Change the WEATHER_PROVIDER setting in your config to the identifier for the new API service (e.g., NEWAPI), and provide the necessary credentials in WEATHERAPI_KEY.

2. Implement a new API function
   Create a function named in the format:

   def call_NEWAPI_api(...):
       # Your logic to call the API and return data in the expected format

   This function should return data in the same structure as used by the original OpenWeatherMap integration, and must have at least 48 hours of forecast data from the time of the call.

3. Integrate into the plugin
   Modify the call_api function in the weather.py file to include a conditional branch for the new provider:

   def call_api(...):
    if provider not in ['OWM', 'WAPI', ..., 'NEWAPI']:
        raise Exception
    if provider == 'NEWAPI':
        return call_NEWAPI_api(...)

4. Finalize and contribute
   Once you've implemented and tested the plugin with your chosen API service:

   • Update this README to reflect the new configuration and usage details.
   • Submit a pull request with your changes for review.

This modular structure allows for seamless integration of additional services while maintaining consistency and clarity in data handling.

Development

We use pre-commit to keep code quality up.

Install necessary tools with:

pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

or:

make install-for-dev

Try it:

pre-commit run --all-files --show-diff-on-failure