Hourly weather data was found for Philadelphia International Airport for the years 1991-2005. As we seek to reduce air conditioning or ponder the effect of more severe climatic circumstances on building performance, TMY Plus is instrumental in addressing those concerns. Alternatively, the best case scenario can demonstrate if passive systems will be functional if the weather is as good as expected with a 95% confidence interval. It is also very useful in determining the range of conditions that passive systems must account for, and if a system will be sufficient to ensure occupant comfort. This helps with a variety of decisions, from determining the cost to condition a space, or the viability of foregoing mechanical systems altogether. The TMY Plus utility creates confidence intervals for the temperatures levels represented in the TMY file, allowing the user to understand to what degree the weather file can be expected to accurately predict real weather patterns. The availability of TMY data makes it highly universal however, the results represent typical extremes and cumulatively contribute to seasonal and annual averages, creating uncertainty about how realistic our energy model outputs may be.

This includes industry standard software such as eQuest, Energy Plus, and Ecotect, as well as proprietary software developed in-house. We rely on government-provided TMY (typical meteorological year) weather files to provide data for the weather parameter found in building performance simulation software. Can weather files generated for energy modeling reflect worst and best case annual scenarios?

International weather data files