Environment — entry 013 of 18

PVWatts

Verified Jul 2026

PVWatts estimates the energy production and cost of grid-connected photovoltaic systems anywhere in the world, given basic system specs like capacity, tilt, and array type. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's developer portal was renamed to the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) and its host retired on 2026-05-29 — the API itself is unchanged, just served from developer.nlr.gov instead of the old developer.nrel.gov, which no longer resolves.

solarenergyrenewable-energygovernmentphotovoltaic
AuthenticationAPI KeySign up with the provider to obtain credentials.
HTTPSSupportedTraffic is encrypted in transit.
CORSEnabledCallable directly from browser JavaScript.
PricingFreeNo paid tier — free for the documented use case.
FormatsJSON, XMLResponses can be requested as JSON or XML.

GreatAPIs Score

Score70out of 100
Authentication15/25API key required
Pricing20/20Free to use
Docs0/20No docs or spec available
Formats15/15Supports 2 response formats
Freshness20/20Verified within 6 months

Embed this badge

Scored 70 on greatapis.com
<a href="https://greatapis.com/api/pvwatts/"><img src="https://greatapis.com/badge/pvwatts.svg" alt="Scored 70 on greatapis.com"></a>

Auth quickstart

  1. Sign up with the provider to get an API key.
  2. Send it on every request as a headerAuthorization: <key>
  3. The exact header isn't documented — Authorization is a common default; confirm in the provider's docs.
Stored keyNo key stored

Your key is stored only in this browser (localStorage) and sent directly to the API — never to greatapis.