“Infrastructure data for all”

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TU München) are working on an open source map to track bottlenecks and overcapacities in power grids around the globe, the university said in a press release. The resulting “world map of power grids” was “a prerequisite for energy transition – not just for us but for every country in the world,” said professor Hans-Arno Jacobsen, director of the chair for energy informatics and middleware at TU München. “You can only plan a transformation of the energy supply if you know where the power lines are, where power from high-voltage lines is being transformed and fed into low voltage systems,” he explained. In order to keep down costs for compiling the necessary data, researchers rely on crowdsourcing conducted by volunteers via an OpenGridMap-App available from Google’s Playstore. Once the data has been verified, it will be made publicly available and could help wealthy European regions and developing countries alike optimise their power supply, the researchers say.

Read the press release in German here.

Find the project’s website here.

Read more on the challenges for power grids in energy transition in the CLEW factsheet on Loop flows.