May 9, 2008—The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) just released an updated typical meteorological year (TMY) data set derived from the 1991-2005 National Solar Radiation Data Base update.
TMY data sets are widely used by building designers and others for modeling renewable energy conversion systems. A TMY data set contains typical meteorological values for specific locations. Although not designed to show meteorological extremes, TMY data sets hold hourly values of solar radiation and meteorological elements for a one-year period that typify climate based on a much longer period of time, says NREL.
The new data sets update and expand the TMY2 data sets released by NREL in 1994. They provide much greater geographical coverage than previous TMY sets, with information on 1,020 locations in the US compared to 239 locations previously.
NREL warns that unless they are revised, computer programs designed for previous TMY data sets will not work with TMY3 data. NREL provides a software utility that allows reformatting of the TMY3 data to the TMY2 format on its Web site, along with the TMY3 data and user’s manual.
