Simulation fails with 15-minute time steps

I'm using the Commercial Distributed Photovoltaic (PVWatts) model for a simulation, using 15-minute time intervals for the energy load data.

I input 35,040 values for the time intervals, and when I click the "Simulate" button, I get the following notice:

exec fail(utilityrate5): number of load records (35040) must be equal to number of gen records (8760) or 8760 for each year
Simulation utilityrate5 failed.
SSC requires input 'annual_energy_value', but was not found in the SAM UI or from previous simulations
Simulation cashloan failed.

No results are generated.

Hello oavaldezi,

In order to run sub hourly simulations, the load data and the weather resource data must match time steps. So, you either have to find a 15 minute weather file, or consolidate your load file into hourly results.

If you need help consolidating your load file into an hourly file, I might be able to help for a fee.

Regards,
David

Thank you, David. I need to keep the load data in fifteen-minute steps because of demand charge regulations.

I've pulled the relevant weather resource data, and I plan to interpolate for fifteen-minute intervals. My new question is: How do I represent the fifteen-minute intervals in the "Hour" column?

I found a script here that will "Convert an hourly weather file in SAM CSV format from hourly to 15-minute data by replicating the data in each hour for each of the four 15-minute time steps in the hour."

I'll give it a try.

That script should work. You can modify it to use whatever interpolation method works best for you.

Best regards,
Paul.

I didn't even realize there was a script already made for it. Good to know. I was just going to use Pandas' resampling function in Python.