reegle unveils country energy profiles
Vienna, 14.04.2011 - REEEP International Secretariat
_______________________________
Clean energy info portal draws from multiple sources to present user-friendly overviews
The clean energy information portal reegle (www.reegle.info) has unveiled a major upgrade which packages reliable energy statistics together with policies, regulations and stakeholder contact information into user-friendly energy profiles organised by country.
To create these profiles, reegle automatically sifts through seven different pre-selected and authoritative data sources such as the World Bank, UNdata, the CIA Factbook, and REEEP’s Sustainable Energy Regulation Network publications, and threads each country’s data together and presents it in a format that is easy to read and to digest.
Each profile provides an overview of the country’s energy production and use, electricity and its key renewable sources, and emissions. It also provides a listing of key energy stakeholders such as government departments and ministries with their contact information, clean energy policy and regulatory information, and links to project output documents from the relevant country, as well as links to the original data sources.
“The fact that we can create these rich profiles is a direct result of the open data movement,” says Florian Bauer, REEEP’s Operations Director. “Many key development partners are making their data available in a common machine-readable format (RDF). This allows information platforms like reegle to draw data from a range of sources and use it all to create a holistic picture that didn’t exist in one place before. Users can still be confident of the reliability because the information is pulled only from pre-selected, trusted sources rather than a general web search.”
“This reegle upgrade makes the website an indispensible resource for policy-makers and energy stakeholders,” say Dr. Martin Schoepe of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU), “because users can get a helicopter-style overview of a country’s energy situation and what policies are in effect without having to dig in many places. And it’s also easy to draw comparisons between countries.”
The improved reegle website continues to offer a clean energy search function that draws only from web sources that have been pre-selected for their reliability and a compiled catalogue of key actors. There is also a clean energy blog that offers thoughtful opinions on the latest developments in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
reegle is a public online resource provided by REEEP (Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership) and REN21 (Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century). The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) funded this upgrade. The Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (MINVROM) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) have also funded reegle.