Sam Weather Data Format and Field Availability

Hello,

From my understanding Sam requires 1 year of data and specific fields to be able to work with the data.

Problems:

1) We have 6 months of data - so should fill the rest of the time stamps with 0 ? This got the Sam to accept our  file but will this be good for accuracy?

2) The irradiance that our data provides is DNI only -So should we just fill the DHI and GHI fields with 0 ? Again this made the file work but what will be the best solution for accuracy?

3) We don't have the Pressure data - Should we fill that with 0 too? Again this made the file work but what will be the best solution for accuracy?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

Hi Muhstasim Haque Shadab,

1. The value of zero may cause errors in some calculations, so a better approach might be to use weather data from a different file for the time stamps you are not using.

2. This depends on what performance model you are using. Please see the "Weather Data Elements" topic of help for a table of weather data required by the different performance models: samrepo.nrelcloud.org/help/weather_data_elements.htm

3. If the performance model does not require pressure data, then you can omit the column from the file. See the footnotes in the table in the "Weather Data Elements" help topic for a discussion of when pressure data is required.

Best regards,
Paul.