CIBSE hourly weather data avai

CIBSE, in collaboration with the Met Office, has produced hourly data sets for 14 locations across the UK. Each set consists of a Test Reference Year for assessing energy performance over a typical year, and a Design Summer Year for investigating the performance of a building during a year with a hot summer.

Test Reference Years and Design Summer Years are now available for Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Plymouth, Southampton and Swindon.

The Test Reference Year consists of hourly data for 12 typical months, selected from approximately 20-year data sets (typically 1983-2004), and smoothed to provide a composite, but continuous, one-year sequence of data. They permit the assessment of likely energy consumption of buildings through simulation under typical weather conditions.

The Design Summer Year consists of an actual one-year sequence of hourly data, selected from the 20-year data sets to represent a year with a hot summer. The selection is based on dry bulb temperatures during the period from April to September, and the year selected is the mid-year of the upper quartile. This enables designers to simulate building performance during a year with a hot - but not extreme - summer.

This data have been substantially enhanced compared to the Met Office data on which it is based. Short periods of missing data have been filled using procedures that have been designed specifically for this purpose. The difficulty of obtaining consistent irradiation data means that global and diffuse irradiances have been generated from synoptic data (mainly sunshine duration and cloud cover) using computer models.

The parameters included in the data sets are :

• dry bulb temperature (°C) cloud cover (oktas)

• wet bulb temperature (°C) wind speed (knots)

• atmospheric pressure (hPa) wind direction (degrees clockwise from North)

• global solar irradiation (W·h/m2)

• present weather code

• diffuse solar irradiation (W·h/m2)

Measured radiation data are very difficult to obtain and are available for only a few locations in the UK. Therefore, for these data sets, radiation data have been simulated using specially designed algorithms to ensure consistency.

• The data are provided on CD-ROM as text files, which may be imported into Microsoft Excel or similar spreadsheet software. It may also be provided ready-formatted for certainsimulation packages. Contact Ken Butcher on 020 8772 3628 or kbutcher@cibse.org forfurther details.