Hello eQuest-Users,
Does anyone know where I can find up-to-date weather data for Canadian locations that can be used or translated into a format suitable for eQuest simulations? I'm trying to do calibrated energy modelling of an existing building, but I haven't been able to find hourly data of sufficient detail (eg. including solar radiation and illuminance) for energy modelling.
With thanks and best wishes,
Dan
?
Daniel Knapp, PhD, LEED? AP O+M
I can provide very current weather data for Canadian (or other country) locations by
processing the Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) data base maintained by the National
Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The ISH is an archive of weather station reports from around
the world under a WMO (World Metereological Organization) collaborative agreement. What I
do is to convert this raw
data to local time, fill in any gaps, delete subhourly records, and most importantly,
calculate the solar radiation using a procedure that blends together an empirical solar
model that I developed with the new ASHRAE Clear Sky Model. The outputs are
simulation-ready weather files in a number of formats - TMY2, TMY3, BINM for DOE-2, and
EPW for EnergyPlus.
For a rough glance of station availability, please look at the Google Earth map of
stations for 2010:
http://www.whiteboxtechnologies.com/WB-weather/google-select.php
Station availability for other years will be similar, slightly increasing for later years,
and decreasing for earlier years, with a noticeable drop-off for years before 2000.
The Web site is still under construction, so for the moment, please e-mail me if you have
any questions or are interested in acquiring some of these weather files. I charge $50
per station-year, with discounts for multiple years or locations.
Joe
Joe Huang
Hi Daniel,
My usual approach to this problem is to create my own in a spreadsheet. Then
use a macro to generate a correctly formatted text file and the DOE2 weather
utilities to convert it to bin format. You can download the weather years
you want at http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/canada_e.html .
Weather office data doesn't match the CTMY data fields, of course, but it
usually gives you the most important ones, depending on the weather station:
DB, dewpoint, RH and wind speed and direction. The worst omission is the
solar data, but I use the CWEC data to give me reasonable numbers.
It takes a bit of time but it's worked well on a number of projects
(including a pool facility that had a 100% OA system).
Shaun
Shaun Martin LEED AP