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@NealKruis . I don't think Mike is referring to any of the South African weather data on the EnergyPlus website, of which there are only three ( 2 in ZAF and 1 in ZWE). Please see my post for more details.

@NealKruis (@NealKruis) . I don't think Mike is referring to any of the South African weather data on the EnergyPlus website, of which there are only three ( 2 in ZAF and 1 in ZWE). Please see my post for more details.

(@NealKruis) . I don't think Mike is referring to any of the South African weather data on the EnergyPlus website, of which there are only three ( 2 in ZAF and 1 in ZWE). Please see my post for more details.

(@NealKruis) . I don't think Mike is referring to any of the South African weather data on the EnergyPlus website, of which there are only three ( 2 in ZAF and 1 in ZWE). Please see my post for more details.

(@NealKruis) . The availablity of weather data for different parts of the world can vary tremendously, based largely on the activity of the local Meteorological Bureaus. The "automatically assembled weather files" to which Mike refers are not observed data, but generated by computer modeling, either reanalysis of weather forecasting programs or statistical procedures. Although much has been promised ("they'll get weather for any place you want"), these methods need more third-party scrutiny, especially comparison to observations. The few reports that I don't think Mike have seen have shown very mixed results.

I continue to follow developments in this area, but for now I'm still staying with measured weather data, which has gotten much more accessible over the past decade. In particular, the US National Climatic Data Center has made available data from close to 10,000 weather stations around the world going back to 1980. Data availability for locations in the Southern Hemisphere varies a lot country to country, but it's not as grim as you might think.

I've culled through the NCDC data, and was able to produce historical weather files for 97 locations in South Africa, 19 in Tanzania, 39 in Zimbabwe, 20 in Botswana, 27 in Zambia, etc. The numbers of IWEC2 "typical year" weather files for the same countries are quite a bit lower (17, 1, 7, 0, 0, respectively),which reflects when the IWEC2s were created (2008-2010) and the high criteria for data completeness. A complete list of all available locations in WMO1 (Africa) is referring to any of the South African weather data available here.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with developing weather files for Subsaharan Africa is the poor quality of the Cloud Cover reports needed to estimate solar radiation. I've found stations in Nigeria and Cameroon where the CC was unchanged for months on the EnergyPlus website, of end. This problem can actual ly be solved by using satellite data, which I understand is freely available from the Europeans as a way to promote solar energy, but only to researchers in Africa. If there are only three ( 2 in ZAF and 1 in ZWE). Please see my post for more details.people in Africa interested to pursue this avenue, I would be happy to help in whatever way I can.

The availablity of weather data for different parts of the world can vary tremendously, based largely on the activity of the local Meteorological Bureaus. The "automatically assembled weather files" to which Mike refers are not observed data, but generated by computer modeling, either reanalysis of weather forecasting programs or statistical procedures. Although much has been promised ("they'll get weather for any place you want"), these methods need more third-party scrutiny, especially comparison to observations. The few reports that I have seen have shown very mixed results.

I continue to follow developments in this area, but for now I'm still staying with measured weather data, which has gotten much more accessible over the past decade. In particular, the US National Climatic Data Center has made available data from close to 10,000 weather stations around the world going back to 1980. Data availability for locations in the Southern Hemisphere varies a lot country to country, but it's not as grim as you might think.

I've culled through the NCDC data, and was able to produce historical weather files for 97 locations in South Africa, 19 in Tanzania, 39 in Zimbabwe, 20 in Botswana, 27 in Zambia, etc. The numbers of IWEC2 "typical year" weather files for the same countries are quite a bit lower (17, 1, 7, 0, 0, respectively),which reflects when the IWEC2s were created (2008-2010) and the high criteria for data completeness. A complete list of all available locations in WMO1 (Africa) is available here.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with developing weather files for Subsaharan Africa is the poor quality of the Cloud Cover reports needed to estimate solar radiation. I've found stations in Nigeria and Cameroon where the CC was unchanged for months on end. This problem can actual ly be solved by using satellite data, which I understand is freely available from the Europeans as a way to promote solar energy, but only to researchers in Africa. If there are people in Africa interested to pursue this avenue, I would be happy to help in whatever way I can.

(Joe Huang is the president of White Box Technologies, which is a commercial provider of weather data for use in building energy simulations. WBT was the contractor to ASHRAE in developing the 3,012 IWEC2 weather files for international locations) ~ ~

The availablity of weather data for different parts of the world can vary tremendously, based largely on the activity of the local Meteorological Bureaus. The "automatically assembled weather files" to which Mike refers are not observed data, but generated by computer modeling, either reanalysis of weather forecasting programs or statistical procedures. Although much has been promised ("they'll get weather for any place you want"), these methods need more third-party scrutiny, especially comparison to observations. The few reports that I have seen have shown very mixed results.

I continue to follow developments in this area, but for now I'm still staying with measured weather data, which has gotten much more accessible over the past decade. In particular, the US National Climatic Data Center has made available data from close to 10,000 weather stations around the world going back to 1980. Data availability for locations in the Southern Hemisphere varies a lot country to country, but it's not as grim as you might think.

I've culled through the NCDC data, and was able to produce historical weather files for 97 locations in South Africa, 19 in Tanzania, 39 in Zimbabwe, 20 in Botswana, 27 in Zambia, etc. The numbers of IWEC2 "typical year" weather files for the same countries are quite a bit lower (17, 1, 7, 0, 0, respectively),which reflects when the IWEC2s were created (2008-2010) and the high criteria for data completeness. A complete list of all available locations in WMO1 (Africa) is available here.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with developing weather files for Subsaharan Africa is the poor quality of the Cloud Cover reports needed to estimate solar radiation. I've found stations in Nigeria and Cameroon where the CC was unchanged for months on end. This problem can actual ly be solved by using satellite data, which I understand is freely available from the Europeans as a way to promote solar energy, but only to researchers in Africa. If there are people in Africa interested to pursue this avenue, I would be happy to help in whatever way I can.

(Joe Huang is the president of White Box Technologies, which is a commercial provider of weather data for use in building energy simulations. WBT was the contractor to ASHRAE in developing the 3,012 IWEC2 weather files for international locations) ~ ~locations)

The availablity of weather data for different parts of the world can vary tremendously, based largely on the activity of the local Meteorological Bureaus. The "automatically assembled weather files" to which Mike refers are not observed data, but generated by computer modeling, either reanalysis of weather forecasting programs or statistical procedures. Although much has been promised ("they'll get weather for any place you want"), promised, these methods need more third-party scrutiny, especially comparison to observations. The few reports that I have seen have shown very mixed results.

I continue to follow developments in this area, but for now I'm still staying with measured weather data, which has gotten much more accessible over the past decade. In particular, the US National Climatic Data Center has made available data from close to 10,000 weather stations around the world going back to 1980. Data availability for locations in the Southern Hemisphere varies a lot country to country, but it's not as grim as you might think.

I've culled through the NCDC data, and was able to produce historical weather files for 97 locations in South Africa, 19 in Tanzania, 39 in Zimbabwe, 20 in Botswana, 27 in Zambia, etc. The numbers of IWEC2 "typical year" weather files for the same countries are quite a bit lower (17, 1, 7, 0, 0, respectively),which reflects when the IWEC2s were created (2008-2010) and the high criteria for data completeness. A complete list of all available locations in WMO1 (Africa) is available here.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with developing weather files for Subsaharan Africa is the poor quality of the Cloud Cover reports needed to estimate solar radiation. I've found stations in Nigeria and Cameroon where the CC was unchanged for months on end. This problem can actual ly be solved by using satellite data, which I understand is freely available from the Europeans as a way to promote solar energy, but only to researchers in Africa. If there are people in Africa interested to pursue this avenue, I would be happy to help in whatever way I can.

(Joe Huang is the president of White Box Technologies, which is a commercial provider of weather data for use in building energy simulations. WBT was the contractor to ASHRAE in developing the 3,012 IWEC2 weather files for international locations)