Sub-hourly weather data: Profiles do not match

Dear SAM team:

I am using a 10-minute resolution weather file (attached) in the SAM csv-file format with the power tower module.
Using "View Data" in the "Location and Resource" tab shows daily DNI curves (after zooming in) as expected, i.e. maximum values of DNI around noon.

When using the "Profile" tab of the data viewer, some months show DNI profiles with max. DNI at night and no DNI around noon (see attached screenshots).

Not quite surprisingly, simulation results are not plausible using this file.

Do you have any suggestions or recommendations? Any help will be highly appreciated.

Best regards

Gary

Dear Gary,

That appears to be a problem with the Data Viewer's handling of subhourly weather data.

If you run a simulation, and then look at the same data from the Profiles tab on the Results page, you should see a more reasonable set of profiles.

Note that SAM's power tower model runs a subhourly simulation, but then aggregates the subhourly results into hourly values.

You can use the SDKtool that is part of the SAM SDK to see the subhourly results. The basic procedure is to use SAM's code generator to export and LK file from SAM and open it in the SDKtool, where you can run simulations and show subhourly results. Let me know if you'd like more detailed instructions for how to do that.

UPDATE 8/9/2017: See this post for detailed instructions: sam.nrel.gov/node/75047#comment-6801

Best regards,
Paul.

Dear Paul,

Thanks a lot! I will follow your suggestions. Sounds really good. Will let you know if I should need more instructions.

Best regards,
Gary

P.S.: E-Mail notifications on your response did not reach me, therefore I found your answer only now. Maybe a problem of our e-mail filters...

...and yes, looking at the 'Profiles' tab on the *results* page shows reasonable curves

Hi Gary,

I'm glad things look reasonable now.

As for notifications, you may need to change the notification settings for your SAM website account. To do that, click Account in the menu bar at the top of this page, and then click the Notification settings tab.

Best regards,
Paul.