OpenEI
Encyclopedia
Open Energy Information (OpenEI) is an online platform that "links energy communities and decision makers (including policy makers, researchers, technology investors, venture capitalists, and market professionals) with valuable energy data, information, analyses, tools, images, maps, and other resources." It was launched by the United States Department of Energy
on December 9, 2009. OpenEI is hosted on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and was featured in an Amazon EC2 case study.
(using MediaWiki
and the Semantic MediaWiki
extension) for collaboratively-managed resources, and a dataset upload mechanism for contributor-controlled resources. In both cases, the resulting data is made available via Linked Data
standards whenever possible. Development of the system is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
, in collaboration with other national laboratories
. OpenEI, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's effort to make data open, is in the public domain under the CC0 public domain dedication.
.
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
on December 9, 2009. OpenEI is hosted on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and was featured in an Amazon EC2 case study.
Background
OpenEI currently provides two primary mechanisms for sharing structured information: a semantic wikiSemantic Wiki
A semantic wiki is a wiki that has an underlying model of the knowledge described in its pages. Regular, or syntactic, wikis have structured text and untyped hyperlinks...
(using MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
and the Semantic MediaWiki
Semantic MediaWiki
Semantic MediaWiki is an extension to MediaWiki that allows for annotating semantic data within wiki pages, thus turning a wiki that incorporates the extension into a semantic wiki...
extension) for collaboratively-managed resources, and a dataset upload mechanism for contributor-controlled resources. In both cases, the resulting data is made available via Linked Data
Linked Data
In computing, linked data describes a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP and URIs, but rather than using them to serve web pages for human readers, it extends them to share information in a...
standards whenever possible. Development of the system is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory , located in Golden, Colorado, is the United States' primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility; it is funded through...
, in collaboration with other national laboratories
United States Department of Energy National Laboratories
The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers are a system of facilities and laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy for the purpose of advancing science and helping promote the economic and defensive national interests of the United...
. OpenEI, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's effort to make data open, is in the public domain under the CC0 public domain dedication.
OpenEI audience
OpenEI may be used to search, edit, add and access data in OpenEI for free. OpenEI serves researchers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, students, and more generally, consumers interested in renewable energy. Region-specific data on OpenEI is organized on a world map. These regional pages derive data from many sources including Reegle's policy information, census information and various energy datasets from the Energy Information AdministrationEnergy Information Administration
The U.S. Energy Information Administration is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and...
.
OpenEI Resources
- Utility Rate Database: The OpenEI utility rate database pulls in nationwide utility rates.
- Federal, State and Local energy incentives: The incentive gateway at OpenEI allows users to browse and download complete incentive data from DSIRE's incentive database, as well as crowd-sourced local incentives.
- Latin American Resources: The LatinoAmerica gateway on OpenEI is run by several members of the Centro de Energías Renovables (CER) in Chile. The goal is to link the national labs in Latin America together related to energy.
Press
See Also
- Energy Information AdministrationEnergy Information AdministrationThe U.S. Energy Information Administration is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and...
- Linked Open Data
- Renewable EnergyRenewable energyRenewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
- Utility Rates