BEYOND TMY: CLIMATE DATA FOR SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS

In many simulations of energy systems, climate is represented as Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) data. Because of the format implications of the acronym TMY when used outside Australia, these are locally called a Reference Meteorological Year (RMY). The approach derives hourly meteorological variables from historic records to represent typical annual climate for a given location. While meeting the need for comparability and indicativeness, the technique suffers from an incapacity to provide information on extreme weather events, like heat waves or passing tropical cyclones, or for specific actual periods of concern.