Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EnerMaps (Open Source Tools to Share, Compare, and Reuse Low-Carbon Energy Data)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-07-01 al 2022-06-30
The energy transition and the decarbonization of economic activities demands growing numbers of datasets on increasingly diverse topics. That data is often scattered because heat and/or electricity don’t have common sources. Moreover, energy data is not always available, let alone accessible for non-specialists. This hinders broader participation and acceptance of socio-economic, technical and political measures towards less energy use from more renewable sources. From a research point of view, the unavailability or inaccessibility of data makes reproducibility difficult.
EnerMaps aims to improve data availability, data quality, and data management for the industry, in particular energy planners, managers, consultants, public administration officers in the energy sector as well as policy decision makers and social innovation experts. In other words, the objectives were to provide easy access to energy data under the FAIR principles and with open access tools. As expressed by the projects’ social innovation experts, this is a necessary step for everyone to access energy data and run their own analysis.
The objectives of EnerMaps were fully achieved in developing open science tools to map and analyze energy related data. Complete documentation through a wiki and GitHub as well as training material in the form of videos were released and are available through the projects’ website. The main conclusion of the project confirms the interest from public administration officers and others to use the tools developed within EnerMaps. This is also true for researchers, who can reuse and repurpose those tools to better fit their needs.
EnerMaps aims to improve data availability, data quality, and data management for the industry, in particular energy planners, managers, consultants, public administration officers in the energy sector as well as policy decision makers and social innovation experts. In other words, the objectives were to provide easy access to energy data under the FAIR principles and with open access tools. As expressed by the projects’ social innovation experts, this is a necessary step for everyone to access energy data and run their own analysis.
The objectives of EnerMaps were fully achieved in developing open science tools to map and analyze energy related data. Complete documentation through a wiki and GitHub as well as training material in the form of videos were released and are available through the projects’ website. The main conclusion of the project confirms the interest from public administration officers and others to use the tools developed within EnerMaps. This is also true for researchers, who can reuse and repurpose those tools to better fit their needs.
The EnerMaps consortium successfully developed and implemented the EnerMaps Data Management Tools (EDMTs). These EDMTs include a gateway or search engine, to access research, publications, data and more in energy production and consumption. The gateway connects through metadata to a second tool, the visualization of datasets in space and in Europe. Together with a series of analysis tools or so-called calculation models, users can analyze different datasets and run their own calculations at a low level of aggregations. Much work has been achieved in dissemination of the tools at multiple levels. A wiki was finalized shortly after the availability of the analysis tools online. Training material was also made easily accessible to a broad audience and multiple training event have been organized. In terms of communication, the EnerMaps consortium was active in the publication of scientific articles as well as on social media to increase the visibility of the results. EnerMaps became a service provider on the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and registered the EDMTs to strengthen the contribution of open science to the energy transition.
Overall, the consortium achieved all its goals with high impact: increasing the use of low-carbon energy related data, and making the data accessible for industry, research as well as policy making and social innovation. The key outputs were the EnerMaps Data Management tools, i.e. a gateway to energy references, publications and data as well as a visualization tool which includes dedicated analysis modules. The consortium also reflected on the outcomes of the project and developed storymaps to increase the discoverability of energy related datasets. A series of guidelines were drafted to improve data communications, from adapting funding criterias to improving data management plans and mandating open science.