Weather Station recommendations

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We are looking to deploy a weather station on a project site. We are looking for temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction as well as solar radiation. The most important thing we are looking for is the wind data (we can get close for temp, humidity and radiation with a nearby TMY3 file). We would like to be able to access the data remotely (internet).

Any recommendations?

Vikram Sami, AIA, BEMP, LEED AP BD+C
Director of Building Performance

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I used ONSET with no problem whatsoever.

Thanks.

Bass

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Vikram,

At least for solar radiation, my thesis work included a brief side-track
into comparing the precision of Davis's solar sensor
to a classic
Eppley pyranometer

in measuring global horz radiation (GHorz). I also compared these
measurements to the values in a commercial AMY weather file. I found
really good correlation between the two sensors under a range of
conditions for a site in Bellingham, WA. For this reason, I would not
hesitate to use this sensor for a project-based weather station.
Davis's VantageProPlus
comes with this
sensor, but I think you can add it on to some of their other stations as
well. The sensor outputs a voltage proportional to the solar radiation,
so really, it can be used with any DAQ system that is good at measuring
DC voltage. Some of the personal weather stations in the Weather
Underground network report solar radiation and the other data you are
seeking, so you might look around for one of those in the area first
before starting your own.

One product I've been tracking is BloomSky
. I think it would be really cool if
this product included a solar radiation sensor, or alternatively,
included a calculation of cloud cover from the images it collects, which
in turn could be used in algorithms to estimate GHorz (Joe Huang's idea,
not mine).

David

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There are now many companies that sell automated weather stations that can hook up with
the Internet for a few hundred dollars on up to well over a thousand dollars. This is
not a commercial endorsement but only a notice of what I know - take a look at the
WeatherUnderground web site (www.wunderground/weatherstation/overview.asp) that claims to
have over 200,000 connected PWS (Personal Weather Stations). They will help you to
calibrate your weather station and then hook it up to their network. There's also a Buying
Guide describing automated weather stations from various vendors. The only damper I would
put on your wish list is that few if any of these products measure solar radiation. There
is a company (Li-Cor) that make inexpensive solar sensors but only for global solar
radiation, so you would still have to figure out/model the direct/diffuse split.

Joe

Joe Huang
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http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
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Sorry, noticed that I made a mistake in the link address. It should be:
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/overview.asp

Joe

Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"

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FYI -

The EnergyPlus Weather File Converter packaged with the Energy Plus
download includes two methods for performing the direct/diffuse split:
Zhang-Huang and the Perez Split. See the Energy Plus Auxiliary Programs
for more detail:

http://bigladdersoftware.com/epx/docs/8-6/auxiliary-programs/definitions-file-custom-file-processing.html#custom-file-processing---solar-radiation-value-calculation

I've recently successfully used this tool to generate an EPW given only
hourly global horizontal (plus the necessary non-solar measurements).
One bug I would mention - for the 'Custom File Processing' option, it
only seems to accept space delimited files - even if you specify
otherwise in the Definitions file...

- Luke

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As the co-author of the Zhang-Huang Model, I can say that the information in your first
sentence is garbled. The ZHM calculates the global horizontal radiation based on various
climatic parameters, i.e., cloud cover, temperature change over 3 hours, wind speed, etc.
It is NOT used to derive the direct/diffuse split, so I don't understand how that has
gotten into the EnergyPlus documentation. I have mentioned this misunderstanding to
members of the EnergyPlus Team five years ago or so, but it seems it still persists.

A week or so ago I read that the Perez Model is used only for hourly data, which raises
the question how the direct/diffuse split is done when there's subhourly GHI data?

Lastly, I would also add a caution that all-sky modeling, i.e., solar radiation under
non-clear conditions, is still an evolving topic, and that just because the results didn't
make EnergyPlus crash it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right.

Joe

Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"

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