Linked open data and use of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems GEOSS in energy systems analysis
Duration: August 2019 until July 2022
Funded by: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action
Project Participants: Institute of Networked Energy Systems Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ) Potsdam Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK) Reiner Lemoine Institut (RLI) Institut für Angewandte Informatik e.V. (An-Institut der Universität Leipzig) Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Energiewirtschaft und Rationelle Energieanwendung (IER)
Project Manager at the Institute of Networked Energy Systems: Dr. Detlev Heinemann
Project Description: Energy systems analysis requires large quantities of data, which are generated all over again for each individual research project. These will be time-resolved time series data, energy generation data, geodata, trading data or their metadata, for instance. Frequently, they are collected separately by each project without being linked together. This makes the data more difficult to find and requires specific access mechanisms for each data source, to which users are required to adapt on a continuous basis.
It was a similar story when the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) was set up, with every aerospace centre providing its own data with its own access mechanisms. For this reason, working groups were established within the framework of the Group of Earth Observation (GEO) to develop a harmonised architecture for the GEOSS. Significant elements include the use of standard internet protocols for data exchange and standardised interfaces of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for exchanging geodata as well as metadata catalogues for finding data sources.
To simplify the search process and make data access and exchange efficient, the LOD-GEOSS project is researching the development of a networked database concept based on linked open data (LOD). As part of these efforts, the Institute of Networked Energy Systems is investigating the possibility of using the global and European Earth observation programmes (GEOSS and Copernicus respectively) in energy systems analysis. The Institute is also helping to devise and expand an ontology for energy systems analysis data in order to enable structured, machine-readable data exchange. To this end, researchers are analysing and building interfaces to time-resolved data from the Global Earth Observation System of Systems GEOSS and developing links to these data from meteorological (forecasting) models.