Judging

We had four incredible finalists, who were asked to submit their work to the judging panel ahead of the event. Our judges were:

• Claudia Gibbard, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
• Emily Judson, Exeter University and Icebreaker One
• Gavin Starks, Icebreaker One
• Steven Steer, Zühlke, formerly at Ofgem and EDF

The judges evaluated each project based upon their ability to: 

1. Meet user needs; 
2. Sector and marketwide relevance; 
3. Repeatability; 
4. Exemplar of data visualisation and innovation;
5. Usability and accessibility; and 
6. Market readiness. 

Finalists were asked to present their work at the showcase, then we announced the winners of the showcase based upon the judges’ scores. 

The EDVP Winners and Finalists

1st Place: Energy Sparks, represented by Dr. Claudia Towner, Energy Sparks

Energy Sparks is a school-specific smart meter visualisation and analysis tool, with automated costs and carbon reduction advice to school management and pupil energy education programmes. There are already over 150 schools using Energy Sparks, and they are looking forward to rolling out to more schools. The judges chose this as first place due to its excellent attention to user needs and potential to scale. We also hope Open Energy can help them access the energy data they need.

2nd Place: ElexonDataPortal, represented by Ayrton Bourn, Future Energy Associates

ElextonDataPortal is an open-source wrapper around the Elexon/BMRS API, providing a user-friendly interface for energy data consumers. The judges thought this project had broad usability, and recommended that going forward they should work on strengthening the API. 

3rd place: Compass, represented by Alice Garnier, Farad.ai

Compass is a one-click surveying tool for renewable energy developers. This tool is to drive the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy sites by providing an easy way to survey possible ChargePoint and infrastructure locations. The judges thought Compass’ strength lies in its interactive nature through enabling comparisons. See the demo video here.

Runner-up: CC Displays, represented by Luke Nicholson, CarbonCulture

CC Displays provides energy data visualisation displays to help users understand how energy works, particularly for public buildings. The displays represent complex data from a range of legacy data sources in a format that users find interesting and help them to create accurate mental models. 

Energy Data Visualisations in the UK

The showcase also displayed great examples of visualisation being done across the UK including:

• ODI Leeds & Northern Power Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios, which has created a regionalised interpretation of future energy scenarios and mapped out potential pathways for reaching net-zero by 2050;
• Grid Edge, that produces data-driven insights to reduce energy demand with efficiency savings and improved operations control;
• Local Energy Oxfordshire – LEMAP, a spatial and temporal visualisation of local energy flows to enable decision makers to see where low carbon technologies could be installed and forecast energy demand profiles;
• Cambridge Climate Emergency Map, which maps out renewable energy projects across Cambridgeshire including solar, wind, and eclectic vehicle charge points. 

Read about some of the other data visualisation projects we researched and loved here.

Sign up to the mailing list to hear about what’s next and future opportunities to get involved.

We recently convened our first Advisory Groups within the Open Energy project and we’d like to share their progress with you. The Advisory Groups are running from March until the end of July with two tracks: 1) Membership and 2) Delivery. Meanwhile, the Steering Group has met to support the overarching strategy.

Our first task as a collective was to confirm the vision, mission and values of the Open Energy project:

Next, we agreed the roles and responsibilities of each group:

Advisory Group 1: Membership

• Membership contract
• Key policies; conditions for participation, roles, responsibilities and liabilities
• Pre-emptive licence
• Funding model
• Ongoing governance

Advisory Group 2: Delivery

• Operational guidelines
• Data production, flows and usage
• Authorisation process and audit
• Ensure that the Governance Platform and Data Search capabilities meet user and sector needs 

The Advisory Groups are directed by the Steering Group who ensure the delivery of MEDA Phase 3 Objectives (modernising data discoverability, access and exchange) and help disseminate work to the MEDA communities.

What we’ve achieved

Open Energy Membership

We have discussed:

• The OE membership value proposition and conditions for participation
  • Scope of membership
  • Enumerated benefits for different parties
  • Considered questions around the commercial model
• How we should be defining ‘shared data’
• Authorisation and trust framework for Advisory Group feedback

Open Energy Delivery

We have discussed:

• Updates from members on acronyms and glossary
• Platform functionality:
  • How data is published and how to make it engaging for users
  • Geospatial mapping of energy data
• Data analysis requirements:
  • The importance of data availability in multiple formats to suit user preference
  • Being tools agnostic – enabling users to analyse data using tools specific to their organisation
• Technical challenges:
  • Multiple stakeholders require different levels of technical interaction with EDS
  • Access from “internal” networks may be a challenge
• Data Standards:
  • Standardising on a metadata standard; geolocation. W3C & DCAT standards have solved these

Our next steps

Membership

• Continue to evolve the OE membership model
  • Follow up on Phase 2 learnings and approaches to data rights, participant roles, types of organisations to have access
  • Provide an overview of Phase 3 and what is being ‘standardised’
  • Map out use case end-to-end journey (identify data sharing moments and what would be required from membership)
• Establish membership research priorities for April 2021
• Update terminology including references to ‘shared data’

Delivery

• Agree and sign off on the Terms of Reference
• Identify preferred data formats for end user analysis
• Propose staged architectural approach for users

Join us!

1. We’ll be publishing documents for review soon and we’d love your input! Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter and watch this space.
2. Please get in touch with any questions or feedback on our work by emailing openenergy@icebreakerone.org