[Equest-users] Binned weather data for US (not the equest weather file)

Chris Balbach cbalbach at psdconsulting.com
Thu Jan 10 13:00:55 PST 2013


Rohini:

If I understand you correctly, I can think of three possible solutions to solving your (binning) problem:


1)      Create your own bin output table from a configured EnergyPlus simulation driven by a particular weather file EPW. Configure your .idf to generate this specific output report: Table:TimeBins and have it report out the weather related variable (dry bulb temp, etc) that you are interested in binning.  This report will populate for the entire Run Period of your model, so unless you limit your Run Period to a shorter than annual period, you will only receive bin analysis results for the whole entire year. Use any quick and error free idf to generate this report, as you don't really care about any simulation related energy results anyways, and are only using E+ simulation capabilities to generate this specific bin report for your specific weather related variable. If you are comfortable using the E+ idf editor, this should not take long to create and exercise, and is essentially free.



A snippet of the E+ support text for this type of output table follows:

Output:Table:TimeBins
A TimeBins report shows a grid of the number of hours that specific report variable spend in a range of values. The first table is broken into two parts. The first part is monthly and the second part is for each hour of the day.


2)      Essentially automate what EnergyPlus does in (1) by writing or recording  your own xls macro which is fed by a structured (EPW or TMY2/3 file) transformation into a CSV file.  Create levels  of bin resolution (time of year, day of week, hour of day,  width of bin, selected variables, etc)) to whatever level you need. If you go this route, expect to invest some real time in this, both for creation, automation and subsequent debugging (i.e. not really free of effort)


3)       Purchase and exercise BinmakerPro. (~ $180 from the Gas Research Institute). BinMaker Pro's interface is very flexible in that you can choose individual months, individual days of week, and individual hours with the selected months/days to generate several different type of canned binned analysis against. Downside is that the bin widths are fixed (2 degrees, 5 degrees or 10 degrees). Other downside is that the BinmakerPro easily accepts TMY2 or TMY3 files, all other types of files (EPW, etc) will need be transformed into this format or go through a somewhat tedious custom file format definition process before BinmakerPro will eat them and regurgitate results them.

For what it is worth (and for me, time is money), when I had to decide, I went down route #3, and I have been very happy with the results. It had the best combination of flexibility, ease of use, and repeatability for my purposes.

All the Best,

_Chris

Chris Balbach, PE, CEM, CMVP, BEMP, BEAP, BESA
Vice President of Research and Development
Performance Systems Development of NY, LLC
124 Brindley Street, Suite 4, Ithaca, NY 14850
http://www.psdconsulting.com
ph: (607)-327-1647








From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Bowser
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 3:21 PM
To: R B; eQUEST Users List
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Binned weather data for US (not the equest weather file)

You could use EnergyPus weather files from DoE and use eQ_WthProc to convert them into the required bin format.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/cfm/weather_data.cfm

http://doe2.com/index_Wth.html

-- Jon




Jonathan Bowser, MCPD

Senior Software Engineer

Beck Technology

1807 Ross Avenue, Suite 500

Dallas, TX 75201

(214) 303-6815

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From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org<mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org> [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of R B
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:49 PM
To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org<mailto:bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org>; eQUEST Users List
Subject: [Equest-users] Binned weather data for US (not the equest weather file)

Hi All,

Is there a way to get binned weather data for different locations - preferably free. A quick google search did not come up with anything concrete.

Thanks
-Rohini
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