Organised Editing/Activities/Oh my grid initiative
Rationale
Energy transition is currently ongoing in many countries in the world and electrification had a significant role in getting rid of fossil fuels in many countries energy mix.
Rolling out appropriate power grids to support such transitions requires to not only plan the infrastructure design but also define what the energy mix will look like as a whole.
Software and data are key components of a robust strategy to achieve such a planning and it's definitely something anyone should afford before going further.
Open source communities, for instance OpenMod, has been involved for years to tackle the challenge of scientific modelling with appropriate software but often struggle to access suitable data.
More recently, this scientific publication enlighten how OpenStreetMap could provide more accurate data to combine with available software. It actually allows to process more easily some electricity mix model instead of relying on other data sources.
So Open Energy Transition association lead a team involving several companies, among them Datactivist, Dynartio, Jungle Bus and Infrageomatics to contribute to mapping countries' electricity grid systems around the world.
We strive to improve the power infrastructure data on OpenStreetMap, to enhance global energy system modeling and improve transmission grid data availability and quality.
About Open Energy Transition
Open Energy Transition (OET) is an international non-profit organization established in April 2023, with a mission to accelerate the global shift to sustainable, accessible, and reliable energy through the use of open-source tools and open data.
Based in Bayreuth, Germany, OET operates remotely, leveraging its expertise to develop and maintain cutting-edge energy system optimization frameworks. OET’s core programs focus on advancing the PyPSA-Earth and other energy modeling framework, which enables high-resolution, data-driven energy planning across countries.
About Datactivist
Datactivist is a French cooperative founded in 2016 and aimed at making open data the most useful as possible for public organizations.
It builds up strategies and governance for public agents to improve their practices with data and AI, with the help of 20 people and 30 associate members.
Datactivist has been part of French OpenStreetMap professionals federation since 2023 and collaborates to bring open geospatial data into public services or policy making.
About Dynartio
Dynartio is a French company founded in 2021, dedicated to support organizations and local authorities in navigating the ecological transition through effective use of their data.
It designs practical, specialized tools and methods and is deeply committed to data openness, with a strong emphasis on contributing to OpenStreetMap.
The team is small but highly skilled, combining diverse perspectives and intercultural expertise. Rooted in collaboration and precision, it actively participates in cross-border research projects to address key challenges in energy, climate, and mobility—fostering sustainable solutions.
About Jungle Bus
Jungle Bus is a French company specialized in creating mobility data and in OpenStreetMap’s community management.
The company offers solutions for both public and private mobility organizations which wish to benefit from OpenStreetMap:
- Data creation for mobility and beyond
- Development of tools to collect, export and use these data
- Collaboration projects with the OpenStreetMap community
- Advice and support for public and private partners
- Audit and data analysis
The company is based in the Paris region and has existed for 5 years.
About Infrageomatics
Infrageomatics provides geospatial intelligence and consultancy services focused on energy infrastructure.
We specialise in collecting, analysing, and improving open source geospatial data. Through this work, we support the operation of Open Infrastructure Map and other open data sources such as Wikidata.
Contact
We have a community discord channel which you are free to join: https://discord.gg/Z4Vxs8hZWU
You can ask questions there to our team who can provide guidance and workshops.
Feel free to check our website out too!
https://open-energy-transition.github.io/Oh-my-Grid/
Community consultation
Hashtag
We now use #ohmygrid to mark our changesets and notes
Timeframe
January 2025 onwards.
Our roadmap
These are the steps we want to reach about power grid mapping.
It may be subject to change and compromise depending on the covered area. Feel free to reach us about it.
Detailed tasks are currently available on this GitHub project.
Data monitoring and conflation
Power grid mapping in OpenStreetMap has been an established practice for years and had produced a significant amount of knowledge. Several other organizations, researchers, associations, both global or local had also
produced their own data spaces with their own views.
There is bow may opportunities to improve OpenStreetMap data and conflate with knowledge available elsewhere.
Measuring differences and missing power grid parts in OpenStreetMap will be useful signals to drive contribution on the long term.
That's why we aim to produce some KPI available in a per-country dashboard allowing to measure the following:
- Power grid length in OpenStreetMap versus identified open data sources
- Covered areas by power grids in OpenStreetMap versus identified open data sources
- Power plant count in OpenStreetMap versus identifier open data sources
- Osmose warnings
Training and tutorial material
Encouraging responsible power grid mapping require an elaborated and detailed documentation. OpenStreetMap already have very important material about the matter on the wiki.
We think that we could strive people's motivation to contribute on such a technical and complex topic with appropriate training material.
It can cover the following, among other points:
- Practical pages with detailed steps to explain how contribute
- Tutorial videos
- Interactive webinars to get in touch with local communities
- Gamification for most suitable items
We aim to provide this content under appropriate free license when possible.
Tagging model improvements
OpenStreetMap power tagging model has been in the making since 2010 at least, is now very broad and suitable for most of the need of open source power modelling.
However, improvements are still reachable and some needs may still be unmatched. We aim to invest some time to propose and discuss of opportunities that may rise regarding this two points:
- Power routing, covering any verifiable and static information to model how power flow over physical network
- Power plants inventory, related to conflation between OSM and open data available as described upside
Every discussion and proposal will strictly follow the established Proposal_process and advertised on appropriate communication channels.
Actual mapping in chosen areas
This initiative also needs completeness to illustrate how relevant open source power modeling can be for some countries. Our teem is committed to contribute on areas where it could be possible to reach significant results, in accordance with local communities interests and motivations.
We mainly plan to contribute to solve the following:
- Complete physical power line description, with power=*, voltage=*, cables=* and circuits=*. Map as many power supports as possible
- Add all substations with power=substation, substation=*, voltage=*
- Correctly end individual power lines inside substations with power=insulator and line_management=termination help
Pursued goals will reinforce data usability to produce suitable graph for PyPSA software, used to provide open source power modelling at countries or continents scale, like introduced on the community forum in 2024.
OSM Tools and data sources
Editors: Mainly JOSM, iD.
Data sources: default imagery sources in JOSM and iD.
Quality Assurance : See Power networks/Quality Assurance
Training/instructions
You can find a starter kit, that will show you how to map. It includes all Overpass API queries needed to start mapping, which pulls electric grid infrastructure from OSM such as power towers, substations, transmission lines and power plants.
You can also use this interactive world map, which will directly load all the power infrastructure of the selected country in JOSM. The map can be found on our website: https://open-energy-transition.github.io/Oh-my-Grid/start_mapping/
A detailed page on how to use the grid-mapping starter-kit can be found on our website: https://open-energy-transition.github.io/Oh-my-Grid/
The repository with the starter kit can be found here: https://github.com/open-energy-transition/grid-mapping-starter-kit
Our Tools and repositories
| Description | URL |
|---|---|
| This url is our initiative website for mapping. All tools below can be found there too. | https://open-energy-transition.github.io/Oh-my-Grid/ |
| A curated list of resources in the field of electric grid mapping, including datasets for many countries and regions. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/Awesome-Electric-Grid-Mapping |
| This repository includes the grid mapping starter-kit. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/grid-mapping-starter-kit |
| This repository documents mapping process and progress of electricity infrastructure of many countries using OpenStreetMap (OSM). | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/grid-mapping-logbook/tree/main |
| This repository contains a web interface and scripts (Python and Overpass) to measure your mapping progress. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/KPI-OSM |
| This repository hosts the GEM per Country Power Tracker web application. The tool allows users to preview and download GeoJSON data for global power plants filtered by country and power plant status. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/gem_per_country |
| This is a front end interface that allows fetching data on gaps in the OSM data through the OSMOSE API on a country level. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/osmose_per_country |
| This repository includes a Python script that compares power plant data between OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Wikidata. | https://github.com/open-energy-transition/osm-wikidata-comparison |
Participants
Our team involves several profiles:
- Tobias Augspurger (OET) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Tobias%20Augspurger
- David Diaz (OET) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/davidtt92
- Mwiche Simpemba (OET) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Mwiche
- Andreas Hernandez Denyer (OET) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Andreas%20Hernandez
- Russ Garrett (Infrageomatics) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Russ
- Marina Petkova (Dynartio) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/or10ion
- Florian Lainez (Jungle Bus) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/overflorian
- Noémie Lehuby (Jungle Bus) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/nlehuby
- Benoit Ribon (Dynartio) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ben10dynartio
- François Lacombe (Datactivist) https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/InfosReseaux
Measuring our success
This repository shows progress made in specific countries: https://github.com/open-energy-transition/grid-mapping-logbook/tree/main
Related discussions
Several discussions already occurred during last months on this matter and you may find them there: