Home
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently launched Open Energy Information (www.openEI.org),
which is a new public website that assembles DOE resources and energy
data.
The data and tools listed on the free, editable, and evolving wiki-platform will be utilized by government officials, the private sector, and others to help deploy clean energy technologies across the country and globally. The website development was a joint effort primarily between the DOE and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to promote the education, transparency, and accessibility of the federal government regarding energy policy.
The DOE worked closely with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and other National Laboratories to create one major portion of the site, which includes more than 60 clean energy resources and data sets such as maps of worldwide solar and wind prospects, information on climate zones, and best energy practices in each region. In general, the fundamental areas of emphasis on the main site include: buildings, clean energy economics, incentive programs, smart grid and solar. The site is still in its infant phase and only lists 632 clean energy companies across the country, many of which are not the major players in the industry but rather small start-up businesses. Moreover, the site lists 56 networking organizations, 123 research and development institutions, 121 investor and financial organizations, 42 policy organizations, and a compilation of numerous major renewable energy power generation facilities nationally. OpenEI.org also links to the Virtual Information Bridge to Energy (VIBE), which is designed as a major data analysis library that will offer a dynamic portal for enhanced understanding of energy data.
NREL, which is the leading U.S. research institution for renewable energy, will continue to build and sustain both sites. It is expected that OpenEI.org will provide technical resources for U.S. companies involved in clean energy deployment domestically or in conjunction withIndia and China, as part of the new collaborative clean energy partnerships. Over time, the plan is to expand one of the portals to include on-line training and technical expert networks for consulting services. Another excellent related pre-existing energy data platform is available at the U.S. Energy Information Administration homepage, which offers information on all forms of energy, historical data, the environment, households and buildings, price trends, and geographic profiles.
In addition, the DOE is contributing a wide array of tools and data sets for the National Assets program that is being carried out by a group of six departments and agencies across the federal government, as part of the Administration-wide Open Gov Initiative. The network of agencies includes: the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services; the Agricultural Research Service in the Department of Agriculture; the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce; the DOE; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, whom are all collaborating to spur innovation nationally by improving the connectivity between high-tech companies by the creation of a national information network for related technologies.
In this endeavor spearheaded through the National Assets program, information from multiple agencies will be available in RSS and XML feeds on Data.gov, which will increase access to information on various topics such as: publicly-funded technologies available for licensing, grant opportunities for federal funding and partnerships, policy initiatives and data-driven decisions for best practices. This transparency effort follows the trend of making stimulus funded project information public at Recovery.gov, where tax-payers can follow the trail of money from Washington, D.C. It is anticipated that this new information initiative will also aid innovators in locating vital resources, while also offering real-time updates that could ultimately generate synergistic development in industries, create new jobs, and increase economic growth. The extension of broadband internet to less developed parts of the country through Recovery Act funding will enable information gathering of this nature to be even more accessible, especially to start-up companies andsmall businesses in small towns.
All of the aforementioned sites will be instrumental in policy-making at the federal, state and city level globally to meet greenhouse gas emissions reductions and energy efficiency and clean energy goals and standards. In the age of information technology, central databases for energy information will be highly useful for timely collaborations and research and manufacturing partnerships in the private sector. Currently, most clean energy information resources are highly scattered and segmented into categories such as solar, wind, geothermal and biofuels and many different time-consuming searches involving a plethora of sites are necessary to pull together critical data.
For more info: In order to anonymously receive FREE email alerts on future green technology and business articles, please subscribe on my homepage and/or follow me on Twitter. If one is interested in a consultation on this or another green business topic, please click on the "Request a Constultation with this Author" link located toward the bottom of this GLG network site.
