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)