A linked data approach to multi-scale energy modelling

Interactions between built infrastructure are complex and nuanced; changes to any one component can have disproportionate effects on the system as a whole. For instance, adoption of heat pumps or electric vehicles by a significant proportion of a population in an urban centre would place new demands on both electricity transmission and distribution networks. It is essential that planners – both national and local – can understand and share information about the resource demands that this type of change places on national and local infrastructure. Access to integrated sources of information – from building component to national levels – is key to supporting policy makers and decision takers. However, over time, information – and as a consequence, the software that manages it – has evolved into functional silos; this has, in turn, affected the definition of data exchange standards. This limits the ability of experts in functional areas to exchange data and implement broader decision support systems. This paper describes the use of linked data approaches to permit queries across large, diverse information sources to provide reasoning about complex questions at multiple scales. The methodology defines a central context to which various external sources can be attached. These distributed sources are, in themselves, registered in a central catalogue; they remain, however, under the control of their source organisations. In this way a large, extensible, interconnected network of distributed data describing, for example, a built environment or electricity transmission network; this network of data resources can be queried centrally to provide customised views of subsets of the data, and so provide a richer view than one source in isolation. The approach was applied to prepare and integrate information about Ireland’s transmission grid and administrative boundaries, along with domestic housing stock into a single data source. The resulting data network is queried by a scenario exploration tool. This tool successfully allows analysis, at a national level by economists, of the effects of the adoption of new technologies on the national grid of Ireland.