Opening EPW Files

The EPW file type is primarily associated with EnergyPlus.

EPW	File extension: EPW
	File type:	EnergyPlus weather data file

What is an EPW file?

EPW files mostly belong to EnergyPlus by United States Department of Energy. The EPW file extensions are categorized as data files which are associated with energy simulator software called EnergyPlus. It is an open-source whole building energy simulation program.

• Main Usage: This file format, developed by U.S. Department of Energy, is available for both commercial and academic level for conducting simulation processes for weather data specific to locations. The EPW files contain required weather data which is to be used by architects, engineers or researchers while modelling electricity and water consumption.
• Content: The weather data files in standard EnergyPlus format contain data for more than 2100 locations in 100 countries throughout the world. These files are free repository of climate data for building performance simulation. EPW files are in comma delimited form and hence can be read by Microsoft Excel.
• Associations: EasyPlot by Spiral Software also uses the EPW file extension.

How can I open an EPW file?

You need a suitable software like EnergyPlus to open an EPW file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your EPW file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a EPW file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online EPW Text Viewer

Choose your .epw file to view

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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How to extract texts from EPW files or capture a screenshot to PDF, JPG, DOCX, TXT, ...

1. Just click the "Choose your .epw file to view" button on this page.
2. After your file is opened in browser,
3. click "Save as..." in the menu.
4. Then choose the file format (e.g. JPG, PDF, DOCX, TXT, ...) you want.
5. Download the converted file.

EPW file format:

If you know the file format, you can also find out how to open or edit the file. The initial characters of a file are called signature, sometimes also referred to as "magic bytes". The signature can be used to infer the file format. File extension, signature and file format must match; otherwise errors will occur when the file is opened. So a detailed analysis of a file is vital in order to determine the format and the associated program. Our evaluation of the EPW files is as follows:

The EPW extension is very commonly used. This EPW file itself is among the most popular common file types and is used by a few programs, each with its own file format. The two most popular formats are as follows:

• 50% of all EPW files belong to EnergyPlus Weather data. The content consists of readable text data, which can be read using a text editor. The files are often between 1.5 MB and 1.6 MB in size. The file type is relatively new. Certain words are almost always found in the files, such as LOCATION, Heating, Design Data, DESIGN CONDITIONS,1,Climate, 2009 ASHRAE, Climate Design Data 2009 ASHRAE Handbook, EXTREME and TYPICAL. Files like these have the following tags: iwec, tmyx, intl, cwec, ishrae, hour, swera, sydney and cswd.
• 20% of all EPW files use the same file format, which can be identified by the letters " mna=" at the beginning. These files are text files, so they contain words and text. The files are 120 bytes to 150 bytes in size, with a median of 130 bytes. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. fmt=3, pna=RS, w=rs, sym=0, pna=Mouser and w=ms. Files like these are about libraries and nopb.

The remaining 30% of all EPW files are files with no common format, the following 40 formats exist: EasyPlot save, mna and NEX. Files like these are sometimes linked to city, montreal, toronto, mumbai, etmy or singapore. If you want to find out what your EPW file contains, drag and drop it onto this page.