The weather data by request from the EnergyPlus team was a
volunteer (unpaid) activity which used Meteonorm -- a program that
created weather files by interpolation based on climate data statistics.
Because a number of groups now provide weather data for virually any
location in the world at a reasonable price, the EnergyPlus team will no
longer provide weather files from Meteonorm. The Yahoo Groups site is at
capacity.
Two places you can obtain files are: Weather Analytics and
Meteonorm:
Weather Analytics
(
www.wxaglobal.com) - Site specific weather files in EnergyPlus format
based on the latest 30 years of hourly data are now available from the
private sector company Weather Analytics for any official weather station
or over 600,000 35-km grid tiles across the globe. These files are built
by integrating hourly weather station observations and the new NOAA
reanalysis data sets. Both Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) files and
individual, Actual Meteorological Year (AMY) files are available as well
as files constructed from the previous 12 months.
Meteonorm
(
www.meteonorm.com) - Files for specific locations can be purchased in
EnergyPlus format from Meteonorm company. Meteonorm extrapolates hourly
data from statistical data for a location. Where statistical data aren't
available, Meteonorm interpolates from other nearby sites. Generally a
statistical approach is a last resort--weather files generated from
statistics will not demonstrate the normal hour-to-hour and day-to-day
variability seen in measured data.
Information on selecting weather data appropriate for energy
simulation is described in this paper:
Drury B. Crawley. 1998. "Which Weather Data Should You Use for
Energy Simulations of Commercial Buildings?" in ASHRAE Transactions,
pp. 498-515, Vol. 104, Pt. 2. Atlanta: ASHRAE. (PDF 197 KB)