The Effect of Variations in Typical Reference Year on Energy Analysis and Simulation for Residential Buildings

A very important aspect in the analysis and simulation of energy for residential systems is the  use of a typical reference year (TRY) as a representative of weather data for a specific locations.  TRYs, however, are not always available due to lack of or insufficient historical readings. Researchers and engineers in such cases resort to spatial/temporal interpolated data or improvise a typical reference year using approximated data.  Hourly weather data for Muscat, Oman has been recorded since 1983. Solar insolation however has not been recorded on hourly basis until recently.    Most researchers and engineers depend on a TRY developed in 2005 using recorded temperature and approximated solar radiation calculated from daily averages. This paper discusses the results for energy requirement and passive cooling for a residential building in Muscat using the commonly used TRY, TRY developed from actual data and an interpolated TRY.