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For conducting scientific analyses of the electricity market, huge amounts of data are required – from information about the installed capacity of a power plant to data on electricity demand. In the past, accessing this kind of data has been difficult as the data is often scattered across the Internet and comes in different forms and varying levels of quality. The ‘open power system data’ project, which receives funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, is to help pool and structure this mountain of data.

Helping researchers save precious time

The partners of the ‘open power system data’ project provide a large collection of data on the electricity market on their website that can be used by researchers and other experts. “We want to centralise all the important data needed for modelling the German and European electricity market in in one place,” says Martin Jahn, a research assistant at Europa-Universität Flensburg and a coordinator for the project. The German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin (DIW), Technische Universität Berlin and Neon Neue Energieökonomik GmbH are also partners of the project. The partners pool and consolidate data from more than 100 sources. This means that experts using the platform will need less time to find the data they need, which will give them more time to work on their actual research projects. The platform was launched in November 2016. The ‘open power system data’ team has recently been awarded the Open Science Award by the German Land of Schleswig Holstein.

What exactly is open data?

Open data means providing access to data to third parties so they can use this data as they see fit. There are no restrictions as to how the data may be used – whether it is simply for purposes of information and analysis or for commercial use. Data collected by the public administration plays a key role in this context, as the public sector registers, creates and reproduces a wide range of economic, geographical, social, traffic and tourism-related information. However, sensitive data such as personal data, commercial and business secrets, or security-related data is subject to special protection.