Page 37 - Climate Control News Oct 2021

Insulation & Ducting
Climate data to improve HVAC modelling
THE AUSTRALIAN BUREAU of Meteorology (BOM) has just released its real-time hourly solar irradiation product with new research data available this month. Exemplary Energy engi- neer, David Ferrari, explains how this data can be applied to HVAC and building services.
Exemplary Energy is preparing to use this data stream which is derived through the Helio- sat–4 radiation model using observations from the advanced imager on-board Japan’s Hima- wari geo-stationary satellite.
This data is bias-corrected based on compari- sons conducted for the calendar year 2017 be- tween the outputs of Heliosat–4 and BOM’s 12 ground stations to provide the most accurate publicly-available irraiance data with coverage of all locations across the country.
This new data stream allows Exemplary to ex- pand the production of Real Time Year (RTY) data sets, comprising the weather data for the immediate past 12 months, to cover all Australi- an capital cities.
“ENGINEERS CAN REFINE MODELLING FOR ENERGY USE AND CONDENSATION PROBLEMS.”
The RTY data for the eight locations is availa- ble for a range of purposes including research and simulations to help monitor HVAC system efficiency. Until now RTY data was only available for Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and Sydney.
The Exemplary team will also enhance the Ex- emplary Weather and Energy (EWE) index, a free service to industry which evaluates the impact of recent weather on building performance and solar PV output, comparing this with the long-term aver- age and projected future weather in 2050 (see fig- ure). The result of this analysis is published monthly.
The BOM has also announced that it will soon resume publishing solar gridded data which has been stuck at the end of July 2019 following the untimely death of their key staff member, Dr. Ian Grant, in November 2019.
BOM plans to make around five years’ worth of historical data based on the higher resolu- tion of the Himawari satellite. Exemplary has long used solar gridded data for generating weather and climate data sets for around 250 Australian locations.
This solar gridded data will have a spatial res- olution of 2 km at 10 minute intervals as well as in the pre-existing 5 km hourly format. The pro- duction and quality control processing of this data, which takes a sizable amount of supercom- puting time, has just reached completion.
Exemplary will produce the weather and cli- mate data for the 250 locations for 31 years from 1990 to 2020. This will include Reference Mete- orological Years (RMYs, tailored to their applica- tion using three different weightings for the indi- vidual weather elements) along with four versions of eXtreme Meteorological Years (XMYs: P01, P10, P90 and P99).
This data will be generated in three formats: Australian Climate Data Bank (ACDB), Typical
Meteorological Year 3 (TMY3) and the Energy- Plus Weather (EPW) formats.
This data along with Ersatz Future Meteoro- logical Year (EFMY) data in the past has enabled many studies and policy updates. A key addition that is proposed for the data is the inclusion of hourly precipitation (mostly rainfall) data.
This will allow refinement of engineering and modelling such as urban hydrology, infrastruc- ture design, HVAC condensers and on-site rain- water use.
It will also allow any extension of the NatHERS and other building performance sim- ulation software to include precipitation for modelling of energy consumption and potential condensation problems. ✺
ABOVE: The data is streamed from the Himawari-8 satellite.
LEFT: The impact of recent weather on building performance and solar PV output.
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS OCTOBER 2021
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