Hey All,
Quick question....how do I get a .bin weather file. I'm not familiar with
this file type.
I've tried converting to a .bin in the Ecotect "Convert Weather Data" tab,
but it won't switch whatever file you have to a .bin.
Any help would be great. Thanks.
Patrick J Keeney
Patrick---
TMY2 or TMY3 weather files utilize the .bin format which is what eQUEST
reads. Here is the doe2.com list that has all of the TMY2 and TMY3
weather files for the US. There is also a link to zip files for weather
data from international locations.
http://doe2.com/index_Wth.html
Andrew Craig PE, LEED AP
*.bin is the file format used by DOE-2.1E and DOE-2.2, which is the underlying simulation
engine for eQUEST.
It's a surprisingly small binary file of only 148K, because the data have been "packed",
i.e., the numbers have been combined numerically to be "unpacked" when read by DOE-2. This
was done to minimize computer storage which was a consideration when DOE-2 was first
designed in the early 80's. The downsides to these packed files are: (1) some loss of
precision, and (2) you need special programs to convert the files into something humanly
readable. Perhaps none of this is relevant to most users, who just need a *.bin weather
file for their specific location and have no interest in looking at the weather data
itself, but I throw out these two sentences just to explain what they are.
There is no recognizable depository of *.bin files, but there are plenty of them floating
around in various places. For example, the eQUEST web site ( www.doe2.com/index_Wth.html )
has a number of standard weather data sets, almost entirely for the US, California, and
Canada. I've also got NREL's new TMY3 weather files in *.bin format for 1020 US
locations on my company website (www.whiteboxtechnologies.com/weather_data.html ).
The eQUEST web site also has a utility program (eQ_WthProc) that allows users to convert
EPW files to bin files.
If you don't find a *.bin file meeting your needs from the above, it's also possible to I have
create a *.bin file from raw weather data.
been offering a service to create weather files in *.bin (or other commonly used formats)
for any location available in the National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC) massive
Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) archive that contains historical weather records for
around 8,000 international locations (1,500 in the US, 600 in Canada) going back to 1980.
Those interested can e-mail for details.
Joe Huang
Thank you Joe and Andrew,
I've got it working. Thanks again.
You will find .bin weather files in the following link.
http://doe2.com/Download/Weather/
Thomas Vu EIT, MSME
Figure I'd throw in my two cents:
Weatheranalytics.com is something I've also grown comfortable recommending when you need actual data for a specific location and a specific period. Great for calibration, meaningful daylight savings studies, etc... The system they've put together is really pretty amazing for what it accomplishes, interpolating weather data for any point on the globe between available weatherstations/resources. Their telephone/email response time has always been very prompt and helpful in my experience and is a big reason I continue to utilize this service. In cases where the weather data produced seems awry, I found this these guys super-eager to help review, educate me as necessary, and otherwise make things right without charging any extra fees or turning unresponsive.
I have zero affiliations with this service, by the way. Just relating my positive experiences.
For their fee, they generate a zip file that includes the requested weather data in a series of formats (bin,csv,epw,tm2,tm3), alongside a small text file serving as a reference for the header nomenclature. The .bin file provided should be DOE2/eQuest compatible, but I have and continue to convert the .epw file they provide into a .bin.
I regularly convert the .epw using the free eQ_WthProc software, found here: http://doe2.com/index_Wth.html. The reason I pursue this extra effort is this process has the benefit of producing some easily navigable and well-formatted visual graphs of the data's DB/WB/Windspeed/Solar (Direct & Horz) over the year, making it a breeze to check whether anything is awry. These animated/interactive visuals (play with the zooming features!) double as effective marketing/report/communicative material for whenever I need to reference the actual weather to explain a result/behavior.
If you are interested in trying eQ_WthProc, make a point to read what the doe2.com webpage says carefully regarding the ".ini reset" procedure - the program as it is currently available requires you do take this extra step to get it installed and working correctly.
Of course, I will use freely available .bin TMY data wherever I can get it and it's appropriate for the model =). Hope this helps!
NICK CATON, P.E.
Yes! Thank you all for the help. The deleting of .ini file initially
tripped me up, but eventually got it right.
I will keep weatheranalytics.com in mind if we ever need any weather files
we can't find. Does weatheranalytics.com have a lot of the international
weather files that are sometimes harder to come by?
ASHRAE has just released a set of IWEC2 weather files for 3,012 international
locations. These are for sale on a DVD through the ASHRAE Bookstore ($199 members, $229
non-members). For details, see
http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/detail?product_id=1823067
Included in this set are weather files for 1118 locations in Europe, 864 in Asia, 173 in
Oceania, 144 in South America, 65 in Central America, 192 in Africa, and even 7 in
Antarctica. I will post the list as soon as I get permission from the ASHRAE Bookstore to
do so.
ASHRAE is now also making plans to sell these weather files individually or subsets on the
Web.
Joe Huang
Patrick,
Yes, weather analytics has files for the entire globe (about 150,000 land based locations and another 500,000 over the oceans). They are built by integrating all of the stored ground station observations with a newly released high resolution historical data set from NOAA. Since they are built on demand you can chose TMY2 or TMY3 or any single actual year or running 12 month period.
Lots of work but pretty cool, as we are hoping it to enable higher precision and energy responsive designs.
Happy to answer any questions.
Chuck Khuen