1. Open Energy Data
(Linked) Open Data for Clean Energy & for Sustainable Development
18.09. 2012, OKFestival, Helsinki, Finland
Denise Recheis, REEEP
Thomas Thurner, Semantic Web Company (SWC)
@semwebcompany facebook.com
@reegle
These slides are published under :
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

2. Agenda
Linked Open Data in Clean Energy
Potentials, Benefits, Real World Examples
Linked Open Data and Controlled
Vocabularies
What is this & what is this good for?! Open Data,
Examples & Outreach
reegle.info – we are open!
The data hub for clean energy & sustainable development
Input to the Green Hackathon
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3. Open Data in Clean Energy Applications
www.energy.publicdata.eu
Europe's energy
3

4. Open Data in Clean Energy Applications
Energy Statistics
www.reegle.info
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5. 5
Department of Energy and Climate Change,
Open Data in Clean Energy Applications
Sciencewise-ERC and Delib
http://my2050.decc.gov.uk/

6. Organsiations and Open Energy Data
Current publishers of Open Energy Data
• REEEP/reegle.info
• OpenEI
• Various government portals (UK,
US, Australia... )
• DBpedia (Wikipedia)
Current consumers of Open Energy Data
• REEEP
• OpenEI
6

7. Linked Open Data
and Controlled Vocabularies
(a typical website)
What can they
do for us?

8. The Free Universal
Construction Kit
connects
Lego®, Duplo®, Fischertechnik®,
Gears! Gears! Gears!®, K’Nex®,
Krinkles®, Bristle Blocks®, Lincoln
Logs®, Tinkertoys®, Zome®,
ZomeTool® and Zoob®
with a low cost 3D printed
adapter set
CC.By Golan Levin (US), Shawn
Sims (US)

9. More creativity with more pieces
More fun with improved
possibilities
Playing games which are not
intended by toy manufactors

10. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 All information is stored in its own
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
database (“silo”)
 Other sites have similar design pattern
=> Duplication of effort and information
 Each site is responsible for updating
information
=> Potential for online community to be
presented with conflicting information

11. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 All information is stored in its own
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
database (“silo”)
 Other sites have similar design pattern
=> Duplication of effort and information
 Each site is responsible for updating
information
=> Potential for online community to be
presented with conflicting information
Using data from external sites requires you to
download a copy to install it into your database.

12. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 All information is stored in its own
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
database (“silo”)
 Other sites have similar design pattern
=> Duplication of effort and information
 Each site is responsible for updating
information
=> Potential for online community to be
presented with conflicting information
If only one site updates its data, the two sites
become out of sync. How does the online
community know which site is more accurate?

13. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 Datasets are shared behind the scenes
=> Each site can focus on key data and
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
import supplemental data
 Imported data automatically updated
=> Provides users with consistent
information across multiple sites
 External websites can consume LOD
resources to present new content in
exciting and unanticipated ways

14. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 Datasets are shared behind the scenes
=> Each site can focus on key data and
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
import supplemental data
 Imported data automatically updated
=> Provides users with consistent
information across multiple sites
 External websites can consume LOD
resources to present new content in
exciting and unanticipated ways
Data is shared at the database level. Updates to a
linked database appear instantly on partner sites.

15. Why LOD in Clean Energy
(a typical website)
 Datasets are shared behind the scenes
=> Each site can focus on key data and
Source: Jon Weers, NREL
import supplemental data
 Imported data automatically updated
=> Provides users with consistent
information across multiple sites
 External websites can consume LOD
resources to present new content in
exciting and unanticipated ways
Third party websites can combine (or “mashup”)
linked open data to form innovative content, or new
data.

16. Summary: Why LOD in Clean Energy
focus efforts
Organizations want to provide a comprehensive picture of their topic by
displaying all relevant information, but they need to focus solely on providing
the information where they are subject matter experts
avoid replication
Re‐using existing datasets avoids replication of work already done ‐
this saves time and money
reduced maintenance and effort
Updates to linked open data are propagated instantly
move towards semantic linkages and interoperability
• Using intelligent data based on concepts behind the data
• SPARQL queries can span multiple data sources
• Never‐imaged‐before data mash‐ups and utilizations (3rd party driven)

17. Controlled Vocabularies & Open Data
Open Data in Use
•Strong need for standardisation
•Strong need for interoperability
•Strong need for multilingual solutions
•Strong need for cross catalogue search
Furthermore
•Publish and re‐use of linked open vocabularies = open data
17

18. controlled vocabularies - benefits
•simple but powerful model of a terminology ( = vocabulary)
•offers semantics = meaning, thereby enable interoperability
•puts complex things into context by a semantic layer
•easy to realise multilingualism ( = translated vocabularies)
•improves common understanding
18

19. controlled vocabularies – use cases
• powerful categorisation and tagging mechanisms
• powerful multilingual (semantic) search applications
• connected data silos (e.g. open data catalogues)
• smart glossaries for better common understanding
• Linked Open Data publishing to re‐use vocabularies
• creating network effects by using same vocabularies
• precise recommender services
Realized by reegle.info
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20. … a clean energy open data portal
http://www.reegle.info
• Well established information gateway
for high quality information on
renewable energy, efficiency and
climate compatible development
• More than 220,000 users per month
• Data portal launched in 2011
Available as LOD @ data.reegle.info:
• key datasets including energy statistics
• over 1,700 stakeholders worldwide
• extensive glossary enriched with
DBpedia linked data
• country energy profiles including policy
& regulation data

21. reegle.info – country energy dossiers
http://reegle.info/countries
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22. reegle.info – country energy dossiers
clean energy
portal
http://reegle.info
open data portal
http://data.reegle.info
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23. reegle.info – controlled vocabulary
SKOS (Thesaurus)
•W3C Standard
since 2009
•based on Semantic
Web standards
•open to link with
external linked data
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24. reegle.info – use cases of thesaurus
Reegle.info uses the thesaurus in several ways:
•extensive, multilingual clean energy glossary
•facetted, semantic search
•wordpress plug‐in for blog.reegle.info
•latest thesaurus usecase: reegle API
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25. reegle.info – use cases of thesaurus
Reegle.info uses the thesaurus in several ways:
•extensive, multilingual clean energy glossary
•facetted, semantic search
•wordpress plug‐in for blog.reegle.info
•latest thesaurus usecase: reegle API
•starting from October: api.reegle.info=>
automated tagging and content pool
25

26. reegle.info API – 1st service
Automated tagging
•specifically developed for
documents dealing with
DOCUMENT
CALL
energy and climate change
related topics
•extracts concepts based on
the reegle thesaurus plus free
tags
•currently there is no limit to
requests TOPICS / CONCEPTS
•available for resources in
English, Spanish, Portuguese, LOCATIONS
French and German
KEYWORDS
26

27. 27

28. reegle.info API – 2nd service
Content pool:
• consists of documents that
have been sent to the reegle
CA
DE
API index plus REEEP's
LIL
VE
original sources
R
• documents are tested for their
VEI
LE
CL
similarity based on the reegle
CA
RE
thesaurus
• related documents can be
suggested to the user
28

29. Green Hackaton:
Global Energy Pulse
Production and consumption of electric power are subject to daily as well as seasonal fluctuations.
These variations depend on many factors, such as consumption patterns and availability of resources.
For renewable energy, factors such as wind intensity, solar radiation or water-level of rivers
determine the energy yield. A visualization of such high-production/high consumption patterns per
region could be a good starting point for discussions on smart grids, necessary interconnection at
power lines, energy storage and the energy security. For a start, the focus of this challenge will be
Europe.
Data Sources
o Types for Electric Power Production per Country (UNDATA)
o Import / Export (UNDATA)
o European Electricity Index (ELIX)
o Seasonal Production Factors
o Daily Load Profile (ENTSO-E)
+ Realtime Data (eg. UK National Grid)
o Seasonal Consumption Profiles (ENTSO-E)
Visualization may be
o a Globe rotating, showing day/night
o and the energy-status of the regions in various colors
o animated 24h and seasonal (switch)
o with various factors to be switched on and off
29

30. Green Hackaton:
Big Oil True Story
The idea is to visualize the connection between tax breaks for oil companies, their profits,
their production and the price of their products. Furthermore jobs created and lobbying can
be explored. Results are bound to be interesting as more tax breaks don't translate into
higher production nor cheaper prices. This challenge should focus on the US for a start, as
there is enough data and interesting, even controversial results.
The idea can be developed further to include other national policies like feed-in tariffs in the
future. Another interesting aspect would be to compare government spending on renewables
with losses through tax breaks for fossils.
Data Sources
•oil companies Tax breaks
•oil companies profits (EIA)
•Oil companies product output (EIA)
•jobs in oil indutry (bureu of labour stats)
•prices for fuels (Worldbank)
•Federal Subsidies (OECD report)
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31. Infos & Kontakt
Thomas Thurner Denise Recheis
Semantic Web Company REEEP
t.thurner@semantic-web.at denise.recheis@reeep.org
Mariahilfer Strasse 70/8 Wagramerstrasse 5
1070 Vienna, Austria 1400 Vienna, Austria
http://www.semantic-web.at
http://blog.semantic-web.at
http://www.reeep.org
http://poolparty.biz
http://www.reegle.info
http://lod2.eu http://blog.reegle.info
http://opendata.at
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