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You can also try the poor man's hack which is to use the raw data from NOAA here . Unfortunately, most of these don't include solar data (it's sad how little measured solar data we have given how important it can be), so you'll have to use a workaround to get a complete set. The process looks like this:

  • Start with a complete TMY weather data set for your location.
  • Download actual weather data from link above (and probably import it to something like Excel).
  • Fill in any gaps that may be in the data and make any required unit conversions.
  • Merge the drybulb/wetbulb/pressure/wind direction/wind speed from the NOAA data with the TMY data. This new data set will essentially contain AMY ambient air data and TMY solar data. Elements can be a very useful tool for this task, or you can use Excel/notepad and the old FMTWTH program if you're using DOE2.

This method is going to be most accurate for buildings which rely on a lot of outside air (e.g. labs) and least accurate for buildings with a lot of glazing. If you feel that solar could have a large impact on the building, or if you want a high level of accuracy, I would recommend purchasing a set from someone like White Box as the others have suggested (also if it's worth the reduced hassle of having to create the file yourself). Good AMY files will use state of the art algorithms for providing the best estimate of solar radiation.

You can also try the poor man's hack which is to use the raw data from NOAA here . Unfortunately, most of these don't include solar data (it's sad how little measured solar data we have given how important it can be), so you'll have to use a workaround to get a complete set. The process looks like this:

  • Start with a complete TMY weather data set for your location.
  • Download actual weather data from link above (and probably import it to something like Excel).
  • Fill in any gaps that may be in the data and make any required unit conversions.
  • Merge the drybulb/wetbulb/pressure/wind direction/wind speed from the NOAA data with the TMY data. This new data set will essentially contain AMY ambient air data and TMY solar data. Elements Elements can be a very useful tool for this task, or you can use Excel/notepad and the old FMTWTH program if you're using DOE2.

This method is going to be most accurate for buildings which rely on a lot of outside air (e.g. labs) and least accurate for buildings with a lot of glazing. If you feel that solar could have a large impact on the building, or if you want a high level of accuracy, I would recommend purchasing a set from someone like White Box as the others have suggested (also if it's worth the reduced hassle of having to create the file yourself). Good AMY files will use state of the art algorithms for providing the best estimate of solar radiation.