Weather and Climate Data for Building Performance Simulation

 

  

Site weather data is an essential input for building energy, comfort and daylighting simulations, providing the key environmental conditions needed to drive the calculations. Until recently most weather data used in building simulations has been based purely on historic readings and has only been available for scattered locations. But as greater emphasis is placed on design for optimal performance, using realistic weather data specific to the project site and selected for the intended design purpose is now an integral part of the simulation process. And as climate change increasingly influences the building performance agenda, using traditional Typical Year weather data for designing tomorrow's buildings that need to perform well in future climatic conditions is no longer an option.

 

Climate Analytics can help by providing you with access to a vast database of accurately measured weather data with options to support all types of building performance simulation including Typical year, Actual Year and Design year weather files. With access to these best practice weather data selection tools you will have full confidence in the climatic inputs to your building performance calculations.

 

  • A comprehensive set of global weather data and analysis tools for building performance simulation

  • Access hourly weather data for any site on the planet through an easy to use web page

  • Accurately measured data for over 43,000 weather station and satellite data measurements from 1970 to present day

  • Graphical selection tools assist with choosing appropriate design data for your simulations based on a wide range of criteria

  • Customise design weather data to your exact requirements with options to override measured data with design values and/or offsets for temperature, sky type, wind etc.

  • Free Typical Year weather data libraries from EnergyPlus and Climate.OneBuilding.org can be accessed through our graphical interface

  • Data downloaded in the widely used EnergyPlus EPW file format

 

  

 

  

Hourly weather data for building performance simulation can be broken into three main classes depending on the intended application:

 

  • Typical years such as TMY, TRY and IWEC are representative of long-term weather compiled from 20-30 years of data. They are assembled to match the long term data from a particular location using a particular statistical measure. Typical data is usually “real” data, but is often not a contiguous year - the data may be comprised of months from multiple years. Typical years are widely used for compliance and certification simulations.
  • Design years often contain a specific year of weather data where the year is selected for some extreme characteristic such as the warmest run of 4 days. Design year data may be used for sustainable design and overheating analyses for naturally ventilated buildings as well as for heating and cooling system sizing applications.
  • Actual years contain a specific year of weather data and are often used with calibrated models for post-occupancy Measurement and Verification studies where the simulation results are compared to actual utility bills and other measured data.

 

All 3 types of hourly weather data can be accessed from Climate Analytics.

  

 

Typical Years

Design Years

Actual Years
Compliance and Certification Design Simulations

Post Occupancy M&V Studies
  • Freely available typical year weather data from EnergyPlus and Climate.OneBuilding.org for thousands of locations
  • Wide range of standard formats available including IWEC and TMY
  • TMY and TRY typical data also available for any location through our Design Analysis data
  • Select design weather years for any location based on your criteria
  • Based on a combination of station and gridded data from 1970 until present day
  • Consider urban heat island effects

  • Include the impact of multiple different extreme weather scenarios

  • Include the impact of future climate scenarios
  • Ideal for use with digital twin calibrated models and design work requiring the highest quality weather data
  • Based on finely-gridded hourly data from 1980 to present day
  • Monthly updates ensure you always have access to the latest data