Tag: SQLite

Categories
updates

PUDL v0.5.0: 2020 and Beyond

It’s been almost a month since we pushed out our first actual quarterly software and data release: PUDL v0.5.0! The main impetus for this release was to get the final annual 2020 data integrated for the FERC and EIA datasets we process. We also pulled in the EIA 860 data for 2001-2003, which is only available as DBF files, rather than Excel spreadsheets. This means we’ve got coverage going back to 2001 for all of our data now! Twenty years! We don’t have 100% coverage of all of the data contained in those datasets yet, but we’re getting closer.

Beyond simply updating the data, we’ve also been making some significant changes to how our ETL pipeline works under the hood. This includes how we store metadata, how we generate the database schema, and what outputs we’re generating. The release notes contain more details on the code changes, so here I want to talk a little bit more about why, and where we are hopefully headed.

If you just want to download the new data release and start working with it, it’s up here on Zenodo. The same data for FERC 1 and EIA 860/923 can also be found in our Datasette instance at https://data.catalyst.coop

Continue reading “PUDL v0.5.0: 2020 and Beyond”
Categories
updates

Publishing PUDL with Datasette

Users have been asking for live access to our data forever, either via a PUDL API or a web interface, but we didn’t feel like we had the resources to maintain that kind of service and ensure it was reliable. Then a few weeks ago we came across an awesome open source project called Datasette that takes SQLite databases, wraps them in a Docker container, and lets users explore the data with their web browser.

It’s perfect for publishing read-only, infrequently updated data. That’s exactly what we’re doing with PUDL, and we’re already storing the data in SQLite, so it only took an afternoon to get the development version of our databases published. This goes a long way toward satisfying some of our data access goals for less technical users, which we touched on a few weeks ago in this post.

Our Datasette instance can be found at https://data.catalyst.coop and it contains both the raw FERC Form 1 DB, with all of the Form 1 data from 1994-2019, and our PUDL DB, which includes the EIA 860 and EIA 923 data from 2009-2019, and the subset of the (113!) FERC Form 1 tables that we’ve taken the time to clean up so far.

FERC1 DB
PUDL DB

The system has already made it easier for us to collaborate and share the huge pile of data we’ve compiled over the last four years. We’re looking forward to using this system to get our data into the hands of more users.

Just a few examples of custom SQL queries or whole tables:

Please give it a spin, and let us know what you think! This is still experimental, and the interface will probably evolve. If you find problems, feel free to create an issue on GitHub, or drop us a line at pudl@catalyst.coop. Also, we’re still hoping to get the EIA 861 and FERC 714 integrated by the end of the year. See our Data We Wrangle page for additional datasets of interest. And if you’ve got other favorite tools for publishing live, open data, let us know in the comments.

Continue reading “Publishing PUDL with Datasette”
Categories
updates

PUDL Infrastructure Roadmap for 2021

A couple of weeks ago I attended TWEEDS 2020 virtually (like everything this year) and talked about Catalyst’s ongoing Public Utility Data Liberation (PUDL) project, and especially the challenges of getting a big pile of data into the hands of different kinds of users, using different tools for different purposes. It ended up sketching out a bit of a PUDL infrastructure roadmap for the next year, and so we thought it would be a good idea to write it up here too.

We’ll have a separate post looking at our 2021 data roadmap.

The US Energy Information Asymmetry

PUDL is all about addressing a big information asymmetry in the regulatory and legislative processes that affect the US energy system. Utilities have much more information about their own systems than policymakers and advocates typically do. As a result, regulators often defer to the utilities on technical & analytical points. Commercial data exists, but it’s expensive. We want to get enough data into the hands of other kinds of stakeholders that they can make credible quantitative arguments to regulators, and challenge unfounded assertions put forward by utilities.

Federal Agencies and Their Favorite File Formats
Continue reading “PUDL Infrastructure Roadmap for 2021”