NatLabRockies / NatLabRockies/SAM

WIND Toolkit Downloads Pressure in hPa

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bug
Dominant language
C++
Stars
486
Forks
219
Avg merge
10h 10m
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

The WIND Toolkit HRRR MET API returns air pressure data in hPa. SAM's wind power model expects pressure data in atm or Pa.

SAM's wind power model runs with pressure data in hPa but resulting capacity factor is close to zero.

Note that pressure data from different WIND Toolkit datasets is in different units.

Workaround is to manually convert pressure data in CSV file after downloading it to atm (divide by 1013.25 hPa/atm) or Pa (multiply by 100 Pa/hPA).

To Reproduce
  1. Create a wind case.
  2. On the Wind Resource page, click Download and download a file with 80m data.
  3. Click Simulate.
  4. Note capacity factor of zero.
Operating System and Version

SAM 2026.7.3

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Wind Resource page's Download flow for an 80m WIND Toolkit HRRR MET file, then trace how its pressure data reaches Simulate and the wind power model. Compare the downloaded hPa values with the model's expected atm or Pa units. Done when the downloaded data is interpreted in the expected units and the reproduced case no longer produces a near-zero capacity factor.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
data
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
55/100

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