By: Ginny Fay and Ben Saylor, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage, http://www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu
The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) recently launched the Alaska Energy Data Gateway, a new online database containing energy data—most of it at the community level—from across Alaska. The site provides data from many sources, in a user-friendly format and through a single access point with data available for download in a variety of file formats.
The purpose of this new data gateway is to make it easier for Alaskans—including project developers and researchers—to get the energy information they need to make informed practical decisions about energy production and use for Alaska communities. Developed in cooperation with the Alaska Energy Authority, and housed at the University of Alaska’s Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in Fairbanks, the Data Gateway represents the first time that such broad energy data has been made available online for Alaska projects and energy.
Currently the site contains a number of datasets including Alaska Power Cost Equalization, electric power generation and capacity, historic and projected fuel prices, renewable energy projects, and population and employment. Complete datasets can be viewed and downloaded or selected data can be filtered, viewed, and downloaded. In addition, a community can be selected and an energy data summary is displayed and available to download or query more deeply. A tutorial is available to guide the data search process.
Development of the Gateway was funded in part by a U.S. Department of Energy award, Making Wind Work for Alaska: Supporting the Development of Sustainable, Resilient, Cost-Effective Wind-Diesel Systems for Isolated Communities. Funding contributed by the Alaska Energy Authority made it possible to expand the site to include additional data on renewable and non-renewable energy in Alaska.
This initial release of the Alaska Energy Data Gateway contains only part of the information ISER intends to include in the future. For example, ISER is also working closely with the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, to add high-resolution engineering data to the site.
For those interested in more IT details, the Alaska Energy Data Gateway is implemented as a Django-based web application that interfaces with an open source PostgreSQL relational database.
ISER encourages users to provide feedback that will help expand and improve the site. To provide feedback, see the Alaska Energy Data Gateway website, or email comments to akenergygateway [at] alaska.edu.
For more information, contact Ginny Fay (vfay@ alaska.edu) or phone: 907-786-5402; or Ben Saylor (bsaylor1 [at] alaska.edu) or phone: 907-786-5412.