System Construction and Data Development of National Standard Reference for Renewable Energy : Model-Based Standard Meteorological Year

This user's manual describes typical meteorological year (TMY) data sets derived from the 1991-2005 National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) update.These data sets provide greater geographical coverage than previous TMY sets with 1020 locations in the United States and its territories.To distinguish between the old and new data sets, the new TMY data sets are referred to as TMY3.The TMY, TMY2, and TMY3 data sets cannot be used interchangeably because of differences in time (solar versus local), formats, elements, and units.Unless they are revised, computer programs designed for previous TMY data will not work with TMY3 data.The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provides a software utility that allows reformatting of the TMY3 data to the TMY2 format.The TMY data sets hold hourly values of solar radiation and meteorological elements for a 1year period.Their intended use is for computer simulations of solar energy conversion systems and building systems to facilitate performance comparisons of different system types, configurations, and locations in the United States and its territories.Because they represent typical rather than extreme conditions, they are not suited for designing systems to meet the worst-case conditions occurring at a location.