---
title: "Open energy system databases"
chunk: 5/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_energy_system_databases"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:49:28.737080+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

reegle is a clean energy information portal covering renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate compatible development topics.  reegle was launched in 2006 by REEEP and REN21 with funding from the Dutch (VROM), German (BMU), and UK (Defra) environment ministries.  Originally released as a specialized internet search engine, reegle was relaunched in 2011 as an information portal.
reegle offers and utilizes linked open data (LOD) (described elsewhere on this page).  Sources of data include UN and World Bank databases, as well as dedicated partners around the world.  reegle maintains a comprehensive structured glossary (driven by an LOD-compliant thesaurus) of energy and climate compatible development terms to assist with the tagging of datasets.  The glossary also facilitates intelligent web searches.
reegle offers country profiles which collate and display energy data on a per-country basis for most of the world.  These profiles are kept current automatically using LOD techniques. As of 2021, the portal is no longer active.

=== Renewables.ninja ===

Renewables.ninja is a website that can calculate the hourly power output from solar photovoltaic installations and wind farms located anywhere in the world.  The website is a joint project between the Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland and the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.  The website went live during September 2016.  The resulting time series are provided under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license (which is unfortunately not open data conformant) and the underlying power plant models are published using a BSD-new license.  As of February 2017, only the solar model, written in Python, has been released.

The project relies on weather data derived from meteorological reanalysis models and weather satellite images.  More specifically, it uses the 2016 MERRA-2 reanalysis dataset from NASA  and satellite images from CM-SAF SARAH.  For locations in Europe, this weather data is further "corrected" by country so that it better fits with the output from known PV installations and windfarms.  Two 2016 papers describe the methods used in detail in relation to Europe.  The first covers the calculation of PV power.  And the second covers the calculation of wind power.
The website displays an interactive world map to aid the selection of a site.  Users can then choose a plant type and enter some technical characteristics.  As of February 2017, only year 2014 data can be served, due to technical restrictions.  The results are automatically plotted and are available for download in hourly CSV format with or without the associated weather information.  The site offers an API for programmatic dataset recovery using token-based authorization.  Examples deploying cURL and Python are provided.
A number of studies have been undertaking using the power production datasets underpinning the website (these studies predate the launch of the website), with the bulk focusing on energy options for Great Britain.

=== SMARD ===

The SMARD site (pronounced "smart") serves electricity market data from Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg and also provides visual information.  The electricity market plots and their underlying time series are released under a permissive CC BY 4.0 license.  The site itself was launched on 3 July 2017 in German and an English translation followed shortly.  The data portal is mandated under the German Energy Industry Act (Energiewirtschaftsgesetz or EnWG) section §111d, introduced as an amendment on 13 October 2016.  Four table formats are offered: CSV, XLS, XML, and PDF.  The maximum sampling resolution is 15 min.  Market data visuals or plots can be downloaded in PDF, SVG, PNG, and JPG formats.  Representative output is shown in the thumbnail (on the left), in this case mid-winter dispatch over two days for the whole of Germany.  The horizontal ordering by generation type is first split into renewable and conventional generation and then based on merit.  A user guide is updated as required.

== See also ==
Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) – a web-based open data management system
Climate change mitigation scenarios
Crowdsourcing
Energy modeling – the process of building computer models of energy systems
Energy system – the interpretation of the energy sector in system terms
Open Energy Modelling Initiative – a European-based energy modeling community
Open energy system models – a review of energy system models that are also open source
Open Knowledge Foundation – a global non-profit network that promotes and shares information

== Notes ==

== References ==

== Further information ==
Open energy data wiki maintained by the Open Energy Modelling Initiative
De Felice, Matteo (2020). "Freely available datasets of energy variables". openmod forum. Open Energy Modelling Initiative. Retrieved 1 December 2020.  The list is under a Creative Commons CC‑BY‑4.0 license and many of the datasets cited are similarly licensed.

== External links ==
De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform (DEEP) – an open energy efficiency data platform for Europe
European Climatic Energy Mixes project (ECEM) — the role that climate change may play on future energy systems
OpenEnergy Database (oedb) – an open energy system database being developed in Germany
OpenEnergyMonitor – an open source energy use monitoring project
Domain‑wide data projects – a list of data related projects designed to support open energy system modeling