Generation of typical meteorological years for 33 locations in Greece: adaptation to the needs of various applications

Abstract

A typical meteorological year (TMY) is a set of meteorological and solar radiation parameters usually consisting of hourly values in a year for a given geographical location. Such TMYs have been derived in many countries for various applications. In Greece, TMYs have been generated mainly for Athens. The present work derives TMYs for 33 locations in Greece distributed all over the country and covering its 4 climatic zones defined for energy purposes. The TMYs are based on meteorological data collected from the Hellenic National Meteorological Service network in Greece in the period 1985–2014. The solar radiation needed in the generation of the TMYs is derived by using the meteorological radiation model. The TMY at every one of the 33 locations is provided in 5 versions to adapt to the applications of meteorology-climatology, bio-meteorology, agro-meteorology-hydrology, photovoltaics, and energy design of buildings. The 5 versions of the TMYs are generated following the modified Sandia National Laboratories method. After their generation, each version of the TMYs at any of the 33 locations is compared with the annual- and monthly-averaged values of the selected parameters of the initial 30-year database. The comparison shows that the errors (differences) do not usually exceed 5%, thus supporting the fact that the so-derived TMYs are representative of the sites selected. Also, the distribution of the errors follows the normal distribution curve.