Why our society needs free and open power grid data

The lack of global access to electricity, and the push towards renewable energies and electrification requires us to develop our grids. However, globally, data of the power grids are outdated, incomplete or closed off, which makes it challenging for us to effectively plan and research grid developments.

Therefore, we created an initiative called MapYourGrid where anyone can map, contribute and own the data of our grids. We created a fully open and free toolchain, combining developed and existing free tools and software, in order to empower people around the world to be able to map their grid. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we collaborated with existing communities and incorporated existing open-source tools, as this leads to higher quality workflows and higher community impact.

By mapping the world’s power grids, anyone can learn and understand the backbone of what lets us turn our lights on, as well as owning this valuable data. This can then be used by researchers, local communities and authorities, NGO’s and many more, to help solve pressing issues our world faces. MapYourGrid: https://mapyourgrid.org/