Detailed Hourly Weather Measurements for Power System Applications

This paper explains how to extract and store detailed weather data measurements that are applicable for power system studies. The process of extracting high-quality, high-precision historical weather measurements dating back to 1940, for power system operation and planning is explained. A new file format is also presented for improved storing and utilizing weather data in power system studies, particularly addressing the challenges of integrating weather measurements directly into power flow and optimal power flow simulations. The file format, named pww format, offers significant storage efficiency and fast data processing capabilities of weather data for power system studies. Finally, the paper demonstrates how weather data can be effectively employed in power system simulations to enhance the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of power grid operations. The code to create this efficient and low memory usage weather data format is available at [1].