




              Installing ESP-r Climate Databases



     The climate database format used by ESP-r is a binary file which
is machine dependent (a Sun file cannot be used on a Linux machine).
There is also an ASCII equivalent file format which can be used for
transfer and distribution. The standard distribution of ESP-r includes
a file clm67.a which is automatically transferred to
/usr/esru/esp-r/climate when ESP-r is installed.

     Conversions between binary and ASCII are done via import and
export functions of the `clm` module of ESP-r. Detailed instructions
are included within that module.

     There are a number of ways to convert climate data from various
sources for use with ESP-r. The `clm` module is able to extract data
from the joint EnergyPlus/ESP-r EPW format files which can be
downloaded from a US Department of Energy web site (see the README_IWEC
file for more details).

     The ASCII file format is described below for those interested in
writing their own procedures. The file consists of a header followed by
six space or comma separated columns of data for each hour. Any line
beginning with a # is considered a comment. Any text on a line which
follows a # is considered a comment and comments or comment lines can
be included at any point in the file. An example of the file is:

*CLIMATE
# ascii climate file from clm67 binary db,
# defined in: clm67.a
# col 1: Diffuse solar on the horizontal (W/m**2)
# col 2: External dry bulb temperature   (Tenths DEG.C)
# col 3: Direct normal solar intensity   (W/m**2)
# col 4: Prevailing wind speed           (Tenths m/s) 
# col 5: Wind direction     (clockwise deg from north) 
# col 6: Relative humidity               (Percent)
ESP test climate                # site name
 1967,52.00,0.00,0,   # year latitude long diff rad flag
 1,365,    # period (julian days)
* day  1 month  1
 0,27,0,51,240,78,
 0,27,0,44,240,76,
 0,27,0,44,240,76,
 0,27,0,46,240,78,
 0,22,0,44,245,78,
 0,16,0,41,250,77,
 0,27,0,39,245,82,
 0,22,0,39,240,81,
 31,27,0,44,245,83,
 67,33,341,44,250,81,
 75,44,513,49,255,79,
 77,50,568,57,265,69,
 83,55,151,59,275,69,
 67,55,58,62,280,67,
 28,44,0,57,280,64,
 0,44,0,44,275,66,
 0,27,0,33,270,73,
 0,27,0,31,265,76,
 0,22,0,31,265,74,
 0,22,0,31,270,71,
 0,22,0,31,270,72,
 0,22,0,31,275,70,
 0,22,0,31,275,72,
 0,22,0,28,265,75,
* day  2 month  1
 0,22,0,26,255,81,
 0,16,0,23,255,82,
 0,16,0,23,250,85,
 . . .

Specific tags in the file:

*CLIMATE
the first line of the file must contain this tag

ESP test climate                # site name
the second line to be read (i.e. that is not a comment) is the name
(up to 30 characters)

 1967,52.00,0.00,0,   # year latitude long diff rad flag
the third line to be read holds the year, the latitude, the difference
between the site and the nearest time meridian, a indicator for whether
the solar data is direct normal (0) or global horizontal (123).

 1,365,    # period (julian days)
Julian day of the beginning and end of the climate data included in the
file.

* day  1 month  1
Optionally, a day separator can be included in the file.

 0,27,0,51,240,78,
Six data items (see the comment lines at the start of the file for an
explanation of the values). Data can be space or comma separated.


Other climate collections, most notably the European Test Reference
Year set, are available from ESRU on request.

