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Although the meteonorm data are now fully available in PVsyst, you can also import data as files from the Meteonorm program itself  (which provides some additional features).  

Meteonorm provides its data in several ways:

•Monthly Values  as  ASCII files  (named xxxxMON.DAT), which may be directly read by PVsyst for creating  *.SIT file.

•Hourly Values  as  ASCII files  (named xxxxHOUR.DAT). The hourly data are built by a stochastic model, quite similar to the "Synthetic Hourly Generation" performed in PVsyst. The Meteonorm process also produces  stochastic hourly wind values, when PVsyst only puts the monthly average wind speed. These data may also be directly imported in PVsyst.

Moreover Meteonorm proposes other benefits like irradiance computation on tilted planes, but these are not useful in PVsyst, which uses its own models.

 

 

The importing process in PVsyst is quite automatised.

 

In the Meteonorm software:

•Choose a location and generate a file  (will be stored in the  " \MeteoTest\Meteonorm\Output" directory) :

•Monthly values: just save it as a file (default format), which will be named   xxxxMON.dat

•Hourly values: choose the special PVsyst output format before saving the file (main menu option "Format" / "Output Format", and choose PVsyst).  This will create a file named   xxxxHOUR.dat.

 

In the PVsyst software :

•In "Databases", choose the "Import Meteo Data" button.  

•Select a Meteonorm data file   (directory "…\Meteonorm\Output")  and follow the instructions. You just have to define the country and the region.

If you select a monthly file, this will create a Site   (*.SIT)  file in the database.

If you select an hourly file, this will create an hourly meteo file (*.MET). you have the possibility to create a Site file as well (*.SIT).

 

Restrictions:

With Meteonorm V 5,.0 and 5.1 the format of the monthly output file is erroneous. The  "*MON.Dat"  files don't include the site name nor the geographic coordinates. With these versions you should use the import in hourly values, which works quite well.

With Meteonorm V 4.0, the same problem arises when you ask the construction of hourly values. Please save the Monthly values before constructing the hourly ones.

With Meteonorm V 6.0, the hourly files generated for PVsyst were erroneous at beginning. If your Meteonorm was installed before September 2007, you should import and install the "Patch version 6.0.1.4" (or upper) from www.meteonorm.com  for importing hourly data properly.