We’re curious to learn about some of the common issues users face when working with data. In our Case Study series, we are highlighting projects and organisations who are working with the Frictionless Data specifications and tooling in interesting and innovative ways.
We recently spoke to Lion Hirth and Ingmar Schlecht about their project, Open Power System Data.
What is the Open Power System Data?
Open Power System Data aims at providing a free-of-charge and open platform that provides the data needed for power system analysis and modeling.
All of our project members are energy researchers. We struggled collecting this kind of data in what is typically a very burdensome and lengthy process. In doing my PhD, I spent the first year collecting data and realized that not only had many others done that before, but that many others coming later would have to do it again. This is arguably a huge waste of time and resources, so we thought we (Open Power System Data) should align ourselves and join forces to do this properly, once and for all, and in a free and open manner to be used by everyone.
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We would like to inform you about recent developments of Open Power System Data, the free and open data platform for power system modeling.
Updates. In the last weeks, we have updated our Data Packages, expanding coverage and improving usability. We also got rid of a number of bugs. Here is what is new:
Conventional power plants: updated data sources and greatly expanded geographic scope, now covering DE, AT, BE, CH, CZ, DK, ES, FI, FR, IT, NL, NO, PL, SE, SI, SK, UK.
Renewable power plants: changed data source and updated data structure.
Time Series: updated most time series through the end of 2016. This gives us up to 11 years of hourly-resolution data.
Weather data: included methods for extracting temperature, pressure, air density, and direct & indirect solar radiation. Also, a ready-to-use CSV-file with German weather data for 2016 is available for download.
Recognition. Open Power System Data is the winner of Schleswig-Holstein’s Open Science Award: “The project sets an example in showcasing the potential of digital networks in research. If many scientists and institutes can use a unified data basis, this creates not only comparability, but also enormous synergies.” It is also a positive example of open energy research in two recent articles published in Nature and Energy Policy.
References. Currently, the data platform has about 7000 unique visitors per month. Less than four months since going live, the data platform has been used in at least four academic publications. If you have written a paper using OPSD data and would like to be referenced on our page, please get in touch.
Workshop. Save the date: the next Open Power System Data workshop will be on July 10th in Berlin.
