A possible solution for exporting hourly .csv data

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Good Afternoon All,

I've seen a few questions recently about finding a way to directly export hourly eQuest results to a .csv file or similar without going through the time-consuming process of opening the .sim file first. I think I've found a way - it turns out that eQuest does, in fact, output its hourly results to a comma-delimited text file, only the file doesn't have a .csv extension.

Please correct me if I'm wrong or if this is somehow unique to my installation, but when eQuest runs a simulation it outputs a file with a .hsr extension. If you open this file in a text editor like Notepad (or my personal preference, Notepad++), you'll see some text that looks an awful lot like the default hourly report block headers and accompanying hourly output data, all separated by commas. If you create custom hourly reports in addition to the default ones, they show up in the .hsr file as well. You can either open this file directly to a spreadsheet program like Excel using the data import wizard or, if you're willing to go the extra mile, provide a one-click solution with a little bit of scripting - in my case, in unglamorous but useful VBA.

Other than the content and comma-delimited format, an .hsr file seems to behave in the same way a .sim file does. eQuest uses the same naming convention for these as it does with .sim files with respect to parametric simulations, and it overwrites an .hsr file if a simulation is run again.

Hope this helps provide a solution! I'd appreciate it if someone could look into one of their project directories and verify that what I've said is, in fact, the case.

Good Modeling,
Drew

Drew Morrison, Energy Engineer
Seventhwave
608.210.7151 seventhwave.org

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Great find, though I'm happy/sad to share there's probably an easier/better method to inform you about!

Looks like the .hsv is exactly what's converted into the hourly results .CSV when you do either:

1. Open SIM file in D2SimViewer & click the "Hourly Results" button, or

2. File --> Export File --> Hourly Results (CSV)...

That said, the latter method above is a lot quicker than opening up the SIM file (for large projects in particular), and also fewer steps than executing a VBA script or similar... I think if you try it a few times you'll be convinced this is the way to go.

A related resource is attached (since you kinda asked) - This document contains further descriptions of the purpose/contents for various eQUEST generated files by extension.

~Nick

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Nick Caton, P.E., BEMP
Senior Energy Engineer
Energy and Sustainability Services
Schneider Electric

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E nicholas.caton at schneider-electric.com
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Wow, thanks Nick! I never knew about the .csv export feature in the eQuest File menu. That is much faster and easier than writing a script. To think it was staring me in the face this whole time...

Thanks also for the list showing the purposes of the various eQuest file extensions. I feel that will be very helpful in the future as well.

Drew

Drew Morrison, Energy Engineer
Seventhwave
608.210.7151 seventhwave.org

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Joined: 2016-07-15
Reputation: 400