[Bldg-sim] bin weather file

Joe Huang yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
Wed Mar 7 15:36:51 PST 2012
Previous message: [Bldg-sim] bin weather file
Next message: [Bldg-sim] bin weather file
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
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
(contractor for RP-1477)

Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 108D
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
www.whiteboxtechnologies.com
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"


On 3/7/2012 3:18 PM, Patrick Keeney wrote:
> 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 <http://weatheranalytics.com> in mind if we ever need 
> any weather files we can't find.  Does weatheranalytics.com 
> <http://weatheranalytics.com> have a lot of the international weather files that are 
> sometimes harder to come by?
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 5:26 PM, Nick Caton <ncaton at smithboucher.com 
> <mailto:ncaton at smithboucher.com>> wrote:
>
>     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
>     <http://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
>
>     cid:489575314 at 22072009-0ABB**
>
>     **
>
>     *NICK CATON, P.E.***
>
>     SENIOR ENGINEER
>
>     Smith & Boucher Engineers
>
>     25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
>
>     olathe, ks 66061
>
>     direct 913.344.0036 <tel:913.344.0036>
>
>     fax 913.345.0617 <tel:913.345.0617>
>
>     www.smithboucher.com <http://www.smithboucher.com>
>
>     *From:*bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
>     <mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org>
>     [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
>     <mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org>] *On Behalf Of *Patrick Keeney
>     *Sent:* Wednesday, March 07, 2012 2:53 PM
>     *To:* Joe Huang
>     *Cc:* bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org <mailto:bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org>
>     *Subject:* Re: [Bldg-sim] bin weather file
>
>     Thank you Joe and Andrew,
>
>     I've got it working.  Thanks again.
>
>     On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Joe Huang <yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
>     <mailto:yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com>> wrote:
>
>     *.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 <http://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
>     <http://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 create a *.bin file from raw weather data. <caution - advertising follows :-) >  
>     I have 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
>
>
>     Joe Huang
>
>     White Box Technologies, Inc.
>
>     346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 108D
>
>     Moraga CA 94556
>
>     yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com  <mailto:yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com>     
>
>     www.whiteboxtechnologies.com  <http://www.whiteboxtechnologies.com>     
>
>     (o)(925)388-0265  <tel:%28925%29388-0265>     
>
>     (c)(510)928-2683  <tel:%28510%29928-2683>     
>
>     "building energy simulations at your fingertips"
>
>
>     On 3/7/2012 11:01 AM, Patrick Keeney wrote:
>
>         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
>         MArch-MSSD Candidate
>         410-299-5627 <tel:410-299-5627>
>
>                
>
>         _______________________________________________
>
>         Bldg-sim mailing list
>
>         http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org     
>
>         To unsubscribe from this mailing list send  a blank message toBLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG  <mailto:BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG>     
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Bldg-sim mailing list
>     http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org
>     To unsubscribe from this mailing list send  a blank message to
>     BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG <mailto:BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG>
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     Patrick J Keeney
>     MArch-MSSD Candidate
>     410-299-5627 <tel:410-299-5627>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Patrick J Keeney
> MArch-MSSD Candidate
> 410-299-5627
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120307/8f5a5ce4/attachment-0002.htm>
Previous message: [Bldg-sim] bin weather file
Next message: [Bldg-sim] bin weather file
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
More information about the Bldg-sim mailing list