Energy blogs

  • Sfomail
    EIA officially recognizes utility rate database on OpenEI
    17 May 2013 - 13:42 by Sfomail
    Utility Rate, Developer, Energy Data Initiative (EDI)

    OpenEI and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

    Good news, everyone! The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) now officially recognizes the OpenEI utility rate database. Up until just a few months ago, the EIA website stated:

    “EIA does not collect or publish data on electricity rates, or tariffs, for the sale or purchase of electricity, or on demand charges for electricity service, nor does EIA publish retail electricity rates or prices for peak or off-peak periods (sometimes referred to as time-of-use-rates)… EIA is not aware of a publicly available source for this information other than individual utilities.”

    But as of February of this year, the EIA website has changed its wording to:

    “EIA does not collect or publish data on electricity rates, or tariffs, for the sale or purchase of electricity, or on demand charges for electricity service, nor does EIA publish retail electricity rates or prices for peak or off-peak periods (sometimes referred to as time-of-use-rates)… Utility rates for cities in the United States are now available at the U.S. Department of Energy's Open Energy Information (OpenEI) platform”

    The text can be found here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=20&t=3

    Being recognized by the Energy Information Administration is a huge achievement for the OpenEI platform, and indicates a level of maturity in terms of the quantity and quality of data provided through this platform. Special thanks go to Illinois State University for accelerating the utility rates database to this caliber! 

  • Sfomail
    Commercial and Residential Hourly Load Data Now Available on OpenEI!
    17 May 2013 - 13:03 by Sfomail
    Utility Rate, OpenEI Community Central, Energy Data Initiative (EDI)

    Load data

    Image source: NREL

     

    I am pleased to announce that simulated hourly residential and commercial building load datasets are now available on OpenEI. These datasets are available for all TMY3 locations in the United States. They contain hourly load profile data for 16 commercial building types (based off the DOE commercial reference building models) and residential buildings (based off the Building America House Simulation Protocols). In addition to various building categories, the simulations also consider variations in building construction due to local climate. The data can be accessed here:

     

    http://en.openei.org/datasets/node/961

     

    You may browse and download individual load profiles (for example, hourly load profile for a large hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma). You can also download the entire dataset (beware: 4.8 GB zipped, 19 GB uncompressed!). Building load profiles are useful/essential for a variety of applications, including calculating utility bill savings for rooftop solar systems, demand response analyses, and residential/commercial renewable energy feasibility studies. A few examples of projects and publications that relied on earlier versions of the data include:

     

    Impacts of Regional Electricity Prices and Building Type on the Economics of Commercial Photovoltaic Systems

    http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56461.pdf

     

    Breakeven Prices for Photovoltaics on Supermarkets in the United States

    http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57276.pdf

     

    Maximizing the Value of Photovoltaic Installations on Schools in California: Choosing the Best Electricity Rates

    http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/51694.pdf

     

    The Impacts of Commercial Electric Utility Rate Structure Elements on the Economics of Photovoltaic Systems

    http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/46782.pdf

     

    Special thanks goes to Nathan Clark, who has been working on these datasets for over a year! Nathan has also developed a System Advisor Model (SAM) program that allows users to automatically download appropriate load profiles directly into SAM for analysis and visualization. I’ve attached the program to this post, in case anyone would like to use it (you may need to download the latest SAM version to use it).  This program will also be included in the next public release of SAM (as a sample samUL file). 

     

    Questions and comments are always welcome below!

  • Sfomail
    Utility Rates API Version 2 is Live!
    17 May 2013 - 12:14 by Sfomail
    Utility Rate, Developer

    Smart meterAfter several months of development and testing, the next generation web service for the utility rate database is finally here! I encourage you to check out the V2 Utility Rates API at http://en.openei.org/services/doc/rest/util_rates

    The new API includes support for the latest V2 Utility Rates input fields (including tiered time-of-use rates, tiered demand charges, new category for lighting, and many more improvements). Just a reminder that you can view (And contribute!) rate database entries at http://en.openei.org/wiki/Gateway:Utilities

    If you are a developer still using the V1 web service, I strongly encourage you to switch to the V2 platform as the V1 web service will be made unavailable in the future. Further details will be provided in the near future. Additionally, the V1 data is currently static, meaning that any new rates or updates contributed to the utility rate database will not be reflected in V1 outputs. 

    Now that the V2 API has been released, it's time to start thinking about V3. Current ideas include geolocation capabilities within the API (example: providing the API with address, zip code, or latlong, and getting utilities/rates back), daily tiers (in addition to the current monthly approach), applicability fields (i.e. a particular rate's eligibility cirteria for voltage, power, and energy levels), and others. If you have any pressing needs or bright ideas for V3, we'd love to hear them! (note, some of the above items may be included in a "V2.5" update).

    Feel free to reply to this post if you have any other questions or comments.

    Photo by flickr user miheco.

  • Jweers
    Multicolor Maps from Compound Queries
    16 May 2013 - 15:22 by Jweers
    OpenEI Community Central, Developer

     

    Hi all,

    Recently, a couple of people on OpenEI have asked me how to do compound (or multicolor) maps like this one:

    Thanks to the new Google Maps v3 API, this is really easy.  I put together a quick sample of how this is done, complete with code snippits, here: http://en.openei.org/wiki/User:Jweers/Test5.  First, create a compound query, then atttribute a custom marker icon to each query using the ;param=value syntax.  The new OpenEI maps extension will take care of the rest.

    Here is an example of it in use on OpenEI by NREL's Geothermal team: http://en.openei.org/wiki/Map_of_Low_Temperature_Direct_Use_Geothermal_Facilities

    Custom marker icons use a relative wiki path, like 'File:Blue_marker.png'.  After a quick search for existing icons, if you don't see the one you want, just upload it!

     

    Happy coding,

    Jon

  • Dbrodt
    Meet FRED!
    13 May 2013 - 08:56 by Dbrodt
    FRED

    I'm happy to annouce that FRED - the FRee Energy Data tool has been launched on OpenEI.  It is getting good reviews so far.  Please take a look, check it out and let us know what you think of the tool.  All feedback is welcome as the tool will be improved and expanded over time.

    Go to: http://openei.org/fred to try it out.

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