ENERGY SYSTEMS LABORATORY

Texas Engineering Experiment Station ▪ Texas A&M University System

eBIN
Data Binning Tool for Energy Analysis
By

Alaina Jones and Juan Carlos Baltazar

December 2008
Table of Contents
Background...................................................................................................................................... 3

eBIN Algorithm .............................................................................................................................. 3

Instructions to Operate eBIN......................................................................................................... 4

“Main” Tab .............................................................................................................................. 4

Traditional Bin Data ................................................................................................................. 4

“Data” Tab ............................................................................................................................... 4

User Input ................................................................................................................................ 5

“Bin Data” Tab ......................................................................................................................... 7

Joint-Frequency Bin Data ........................................................................................................ 8

“DataJ” Tab .............................................................................................................................. 8

User Input ................................................................................................................................ 9

“Joint Bin Data” Tab .............................................................................................................. 10

List of Figures
Figure 1. eBIN “Main” Tab ................................................................................................................. 4

Figure 2. eBIN "Data" Tab .................................................................................................................. 5

Figure 3. "User Input" Excel User Form Default .............................................................................. 6

Figure 4. "User Input" for Non-Uniform Spacing............................................................................. 6

Figure 5. "User Input" Change Values or Calculate Bins ................................................................. 7

Figure 6. Bin Weather Data Sample ................................................................................................ 8

Figure 7. Joint eBIN "DataJ" Tab ........................................................................................................ 9

Figure 8. "User Input" Excel User Form Default .............................................................................. 9

Figure 9. "User Input" for Specific Range ...................................................................................... 10

Figure 10. Joint Bin Weather Data Sample .................................................................................... 11

Background
Often in the analysis of building loads and energy consumption it is helpful to have bin weather
data. The criteria for the bin weather data changes depending on location, year of analysis and
other project specific details. Bin weather data involves two different weather variables, some
examples include; dry bulb and dew point temperatures, dry and wet bulb temperatures, or
temperature and humidity. Typically binned weather data is generated by sorting one weather
variable into bins while the mean coincident value of another variable is calculated for each bin.
In some cases this method does not accurately account for extreme weather conditions, which
is often the case in hot and humid climates. One solution to this problem is the use of joint-
frequency bin weather data. Joint-frequency bin weather data groups the number of shared
occurrences of two weather variables into bins, for example dry-bulb temperature and humidity
ratio.

There are currently some programs available that determine bin weather data by using typical
weather data. However, there may be instances in which the city of interest is not included in
the data set or the use of atypical weather is of interest for your particular energy analysis.
Therefore, a spreadsheet based tool was developed to automate the binning process of weather
data or any other related variables —eBIN.

eBIN Algorithm
Binning is a data processing technique of grouping measured data into data classes, which is
used to reduce the effects of minor observation errors. The original data values which fall in a
given small interval, a “bin”, are replaced by a value representative of that interval. eBIN can be
used to generate traditional bin data, one binned variable and one mean coincident variable, or
joint-frequency bin data, two binned variables simultaneously. The tool requires user input of
the hourly data including the day and time and two related variables, the desired range for each
bin and the desired time interval(s). The bin ranges available are 3 to 10 units of the binned
variable (degrees for temperature). Is generally accepted that each bin is represented by the
average value of the bin range; e.g. a bin range of 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (°F) is
represented by 57.5 °F.

The traditional bins can be grouped based on a 24 hour time interval or different time intervals
(up to 6 total) either uniform (equal divisions of the 24 hours) or non-uniform. The starting hour
of non-uniform time intervals must be specified. For example the user may want to bin the data
based on the occupancy schedule of a facility to be analyzed. In this case the data may be
binned in two different time intervals: 8:00am to 5:00pm (occupied period) and 5:00pm to
8:00am (unoccupied period), this would represent 2 time intervals with non-uniform hours, 1st
starting hour = 8, 2nd starting hour = 17.
The traditional bin data algorithm uses simple looping employing for, if-then and do-until loops
to determine the hours of occurrence for each user specified data bin for one variable for each
time interval. Similarly, the mean coincident value of another variable is calculated relative to
the specified data bin. For each time interval, for each hour, for each bin, if the binned variable
is within the bin range (greater than or equal to the lower bin value and less than the higher bin
value) the count of the number of hours increases and the non-binned variable value is added to
a running sum. After all occurrences of the binned variable are found, the mean coincident
value of the non-binned variable is calculated by dividing the sum of the non-binned values by
the number of hours. To illustrate, for a sample set of data (1 year) grouped into 5 degree
Fahrenheit (°F) bins of dry-bulb temperature using one time interval (24 hours) there were 1,040
hours when the temperature was between 70 to 75°F and the mean coincident wet-bulb
temperature (MCWB) was 65°F during those hours.

The joint-frequency bin data algorithm uses simple looping employing for and if-then loops to
determine the shared hours of occurrence for two variables for each time interval. For each
time interval, for each hour, for each bin, if one variable is within its bin range and the other
variable is also within its bin range the count of the number of hours increases. To illustrate, for
a sample set of data grouped into 5°F bins of dry-bulb temperature and 5°F bins of wet-bulb
temperature there were 148 hours where the dry bulb temperature was in the range of 65 to
70°F while the wet bulb temperature was in the range of 55 to 60°F.

Instructions to Operate eBIN

“Main” Tab
The user must first choose between traditional bin data or joint-frequency bin data
determination, by clicking the appropriate button on the “main” tab, shown in Figure 1. Once
the choice is made the user will be directed to the appropriate tab.

Figure 1. eBIN “Main” Tab

Traditional Bin Data

“Data” Tab
For conventional bin data, eBIN includes brief instructions on the “Data” Tab, as seen in Figure 2
below; more detailed instructions will be provided in this section. The user must copy
consecutive hourly data into columns A, B and C starting in row 2, leaving the header row 1.
Column A should be the date and time, column B should be the variable to be divided into bins
and column C should be the variable for which the mean coincident value will be calculated.
The user should input the appropriate headings for columns B and C, in cells B1 and C1
respectively. The next step is to click the “User Input” button.

Figure 2. eBIN "Data" Tab

User Input
Clicking the “User Input” button brings up an excel user form titled “User Input” as seen in Figure
3 below. The user must choose the desired range for each bin, choose uniform or non-uniform
time interval spacing and choose the desired number of time intervals.
 Figure 3. "User Input" Excel User Form Default

If non-uniform time interval spacing is required, the user must also enter the starting hour for
each time interval. Upon choosing non-uniform time interval spacing a new field will appear
requiring the input of the starting hours. This field will change depending on the number of
time intervals selected, see Figure 4. The starting hours must be consecutive and in ascending
order.

Figure 4. "User Input" for Non-Uniform Spacing

After inputting all information the user must click the “Check Values” button, shown in Figure 3.
This will ensure that eBIN has the appropriate information to determine the bin weather data. If
there are inappropriate values the user will be prompted to fix the errors, otherwise the user
will have the option of calculating the bins by clicking the “Calculate Bins” button or changing
values by clicking the “Change Values” button, as seen in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5. "User Input" Change Values or Calculate Bins

“Bin Data” Tab

After clicking the “Calculate Bins” button, the bin weather data will appear on the “Bin Data”
Tab, as seen in Figure 6. The bins are shown in columns A & B. The subsequent columns show
the number of hours (or occurrences) of the binned weather variable and the mean coincident
value of the other weather variable, for each bin and each time interval. The total number of
hours and the mean coincident value for each bin are shown in the last two columns.
 Figure 6. Bin Weather Data Sample

Joint-Frequency Bin Data

“DataJ” Tab
For joint-frequency bin data, eBIN includes brief instructions on the “DataJ” Tab, as seen in Figure
7 below; more detailed instructions will be provided in this section. The user must copy
consecutive hourly data into columns A, B and C starting in row 2, leaving the header row 1.
Column A should be the date and time, column B should be one weather variable and column C
should be the other weather variable. The user can enter the appropriate headings for columns
B and C, in cells B1 and C1 respectively. The next step is to click the “User Input” button.
 Figure 7. Joint eBIN "DataJ" Tab

User Input
Clicking the “User Input” button brings up an excel user form titled “User Input” as seen in Figure
8 below. The user must enter the name for Variable 1 and 2, choose “all values” or specific
range for the range of each variable and choose the bin interval.

Figure 8. "User Input" Excel User Form Default

If a specific range is desired, the user will have the opportunity to enter the minimum and
maximum value upon choosing “specific range.” The max and min values that initially appear
are the respective max and min of the user’s data set, see Figure 9.

Figure 9. "User Input" for Specific Range

After inputting all information the user must click the “Calculate Bins” button, shown in Figure 9.

“Joint Bin Data” Tab

After clicking the “Calculate Bins” button, the joint-frequency bin weather data will appear on
the “Joint Bin Data” Tab, as seen in Figure 10. Variable 1 bins are shown in Column B and
Variable 2 bins are shown in Row 2. The shaded grey area contains the joint-frequency data of
the number of occurrences shared between the variable 1 bin as well as the variable 2 bin. For
example, the red oval in Figure 10, shows there were 148 hours where the dry bulb temperature
was in the range of 65 to 70°F (average 67.5°F) while the wet bulb temperature was in the range
of 55 to 60°F (average 57.5°F).
Figure 10. Joint Bin Weather Data Sample