Electricity Maps’ open source initiative aims to use electricity data to compute carbon emissions worldwide, bringing together the public data and making it accessible to everyone. In this video, Pierre Segonne, Tech lead at Electricity Maps, talks about the organization and its involvement with the Carbon Data Specification Consortium (CDSC). On discussing how the CDSC is helping companies prepare future carbon emission regulations, he says, “[Companies] need to have the tools ready for when these regulations might appear, so that they can comply without having to invest a lot of money.

Electricity data and carbon emissions with a focus on open-source mapping project

• Electricity Maps uses open-source electricity data to compute carbon emissions worldwide. Their open core helps them identify the resources for public data sources for electricity, and then process the data so it can be used by consumers.
• Segonne explains how Electricity Maps got associated with LF Energy, saying they were approached by the second working group of the carbon data specification as their work aligns well.
• Segonne talks about the complexity of managing new distributed energy sources on the grid. There could be future challenges if the majority of the generation in certain zones comes from distributed sources, as the data might not be captured.
• Open-sourcing the sourcing of the data and the visual aspect of Electricity Maps has enabled them to scale the project and to give contributors to get involved.

Open source projects for climate change, including CDSC

• Electricity Maps is the most popular climate change open-source repository on GitHub with thousands of users across the globe.
• Open source helps address responsibility and fairness issues related to climate change. Segonne believes it allows people to contribute equally to mitigation efforts, making it easier for people to engage with such projects.
• Segonne discusses the progress being made by the CDSC. He explains how the specification work has been divided into different streams and shares some of the key participants.
• Projects like these can have long-term business benefits enabling companies to prepare for future carbon emission regulations, helping them get ahead and avoid significant future compliance costs.
• Segonne discusses the technical and outreach challenges in standardizing carbon data for electricity grids citing challenges with finding the right level of traction and type of definitions for different applications worldwide and then convincing different power grid operators and the general public to adopt this standardization.

Guest: Pierre Segonne (LinkedIn) 
Organization: LF Energy (Twitter) | Company: Electricity Maps (Twitter)
Show: State of Energy

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.