Paper Conference

ASHRAE & IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2016: Building Performance Modeling Conference

     

Estimating Sub-Hourly Solar Radiation and Effective Sky Temperature from Hourly Weather Data

Timothy McDowell, Michaël Kummert
Thermal Energy System Specialists, LLC, Madison, WI, USA
Polytechnique Montréal, Mechanical Engineering, Montréal, QC, Canada

Abstract: Users of whole-building simulation programs spend time and resources in selecting the most appropriate weather file for a simulation, whether it be a historical or actual weather file. However, they rarely check the algorithms used in the programs to process the weather data into the components used in the simulation program. This paper investigates some of the different algorithms used in popular simulation programs to determine effective sky temperatures and sub-hourly solar radiation from the hourly values available in typical weather data sources. The impact of these algorithmic differences on the simulation results are highlighted.
Pages: 423 - 430
Paper:
simbuild2016_C056