The Scenario
Your field team replaced panels at 8 sites last month. Each replacement changed the DC capacity and the system loss factor. Someone updated an Excel workbook with the new values — resource_id in column A, new_capacity_dc in column B, new_loss_factor in column C. The data is right there. What it isn't is in Solcast. The irradiance-to-power modeling is running on the old specs, which means every energy forecast generated since the replacements is quietly wrong.
The bad version:
- Open Solcast, search for site 1 by resource ID, navigate to the edit form, find the capacity field, update it, find the loss_factor field, update it, save
- Repeat for 7 more sites, being careful not to accidentally clear the tilt, azimuth, or tracking type that you didn't mean to touch
- Come back to the workbook and manually mark column D as 'updated' for each one
Eight sites. Eight separate navigation sequences through the Solcast UI. The quarterly energy report runs Wednesday and every hour the old specs stay in the system, the forecast numbers drift further from reality.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook. It reads the change log, sends a PATCH to Solcast for each site — updating only the fields you specify — and writes the result back into column D so you know what landed.
For each row in this sheet — columns: resource_id (A), new_capacity_dc (B), new_loss_factor (C) — patch the corresponding Solcast PV power site updating only those two fields, then write 'updated' or the error message into column D
What You Get
- Column D populated with 'updated' for every successful PATCH
- Any site that fails — invalid resource ID, API rejection, network timeout — gets the specific error message in column D so you know exactly which one needs attention
- Tilt, azimuth, tracking type, and all other parameters left untouched in Solcast
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
The capacity values in the workbook are in watts but Solcast expects kilowatts
For each row in A:C, divide the value in column B by 1000 before sending it as capacity_dc to Solcast. Patch each site with the converted capacity and the loss_factor from column C. Write 'updated' or the error into column D and the converted kW value into column E for reference
Some rows in column B are blank because only the loss_factor changed at those sites
For each row in A:C, patch the Solcast site with resource_id from column A. If column B has a value, include new_capacity_dc in the update. If column C has a value, include new_loss_factor. Skip any field that is blank. Write 'updated' or the error into column D
A second worksheet has the resource IDs for the same sites under different column names and needs to be joined first
Match each resource_id in column A of this sheet against the 'Site Registry' worksheet where resource IDs are in column A and current site names are in column B. After matching, patch each Solcast site with the new_capacity_dc from column B and new_loss_factor from column C of this sheet. Write the site name and 'updated' or the error into column D
Validate the new values, apply the patches, and write a change summary in one prompt
For each row in A:C, validate that new_capacity_dc is a positive number and new_loss_factor is between 0 and 1. For rows that pass, patch the Solcast site and write 'updated' into column D. For rows that fail validation, write the specific validation error into column D and skip the API call. After processing all rows, write a summary in cell A12 with the count of successful patches and the count of validation failures
The pattern: validate, patch, and summarize in one instruction so the change-log workbook becomes a complete audit trail rather than a to-do list.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any Excel workbook where you're tracking configuration changes for Solcast sites, and ask it to apply the updates and write back the results. Also see bulk-registering new sites or the Solcast integration overview.