A New Way to Obtain Climate Files in Areas with the Presence of Microclimates by Applying the Sandia Method: A Galician Case Study

Abstract

In order to obtain reliable energy simulation results, it is essential to have accurate climate files corresponding to specific geographical locations. The present work describes a selection process of the Typical Meteorological Months (TMM) that will generate the Typical Meteorological Years (TMY) in eight locations of the Community of Galicia for an analysis period between 2008 and 2017 (10 years). The region of Galicia, located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, due to its particular orography, is prone to the generation of differentiated microclimates in relatively close locations. The process of selecting the typical meteorological months has been carried out following the Sandia Laboratories method. In the present work, data from terrestrial meteorological stations have been combined with solar radiation data obtained from satellite images. Finally, for the validation and comparative study of results, files have been generated in Energy Plus Weather (epw) format. Trends have been checked and typical statistics have been used to analyse the correlations between the files generated with the Sandia method, and the usual reference files (LT, WY, BY). It is observed that with the eight files generated, new differentiated climates are detected, which will affect the improvement of the precision of the energy simulations of buildings that are going to be carried out. For example, in the case of the Campus Lugo and Pedro Murias stations, located in the same climatic zone according to Spanish regulations, differences are observed in the annual averages: DTm (13.7%), WV (41%) or GHI (9%).