Weather Files for Simulation

Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) are hosting a webinar (or in person) focused on starting a discussion around the types of weather files we will need for building performance simulation over the next decade. In New Zealand it is over a decade since the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) funded the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric science (NIWA) to develop a set of weather files for energy performance simulation. These remain close to the current state-of-the-art for weather files internationally because, contrary to much international practice, the solar radiation is based on measured data with satellite data used to interpolate between measurement sites. But, it is time to think about developing a new set of data. There are many reasons for this:

1. increased pressure from clients to base calculations on weather data that is “up to date for climate change”;

2. the widespread availability of the less rigorously derived IWEC…