Watch a video summary of the MEDA2 outputs
and read our report here.
We will be updating these FAQs on a regular basis. If you can’t find information you are looking for here or elsewhere on the website, please contact Michelle Brook on michelle.brook@icebreakerone.org.
Open Energy is an ambitious project to modernise access to energy data. This project intends to break down this barrier by creating an Open Energy Standard and Governance Platform that will make it easier to share and access data about energy supply and demand, so the UK can drive towards decarbonisation.
Learn more about this on 'What is Open Energy'
Open Energy is Icebreaker One’s competitive solution to the Modernising Energy Data Access (MEDA) initiative launched by a cross section of government departments (BEIS, Innovate UK and Ofgem) in 2019. This is a £103m project that aims to revolutionise the way data is shared across the diverse energy sector in the UK.
The Open Energy project is one of two finalists in competition with Siemens to secure substantial investment for the project in 2021.
A consortium of three key partners: Icebreaker One, Open Climate Fix and PassivSystems.
During Phase 2 of the MEDA competition Open Energy is focusing on high-level stakeholder engagement. The team has convened a group of 60+ experts from the energy sector and beyond to collaboratively tackle the MEDA challenges. The experts make up four different Advisory Groups that each focus on a different area of the energy sector: Industry and Providers, Regulators and Legal, Policy and Consumers and Market Facing Organisations.
If you are in industry, academia, government, technology or on the consumer side of the energy sector, and want to be involved in building the energy data ecosystem, we want to hear from you! Get in touch with our community manager, Michelle Brook, or sign our Expression of Interest form
.MEDA Phase 1 was primarily a research phase. We spoke to over 200 individuals, via webinars and 1-2-1 interviews, to find out what modernising the energy data system meant to them.
Our research found that the energy data ecosystem is a detailed web of information that is only going to increase in complexity as the system becomes digitalised and data-driven. Interviewees from Phase 1 expressed the need for a clear roadmap to transition from a fragmented data landscape to a robust, decentralised, federated data infrastructure. They also believe that “there can be no single platform for all data and use-cases” and “there will be significant barriers to adoption around the centralisation of commercial data”.
Find out more about the background to this work.
A set of Advisory Groups made up of over 60 industry and sector experts came together to guide the development of an Open Energy Standard and Governance Platform prototype, which enables the share data securely while making it easily searchable and usable. We are inviting comment on the work done by our AGs and the Icebreaker One led consortium, to help us shape our plans for future work.
We delivered a three-month programme of deep engagement with stakeholders across the energy sector, which was completed in November 2020.
We believe that industry engagement is critical to success, which is why we have taken this collaborative approach. Understanding and answering the user's needs is what makes our approach different
.If you are interested in being involved in our future work, please sign our Expression of Interest form.
Because this is what we have heard from the energy sector. In Phase 1, we engaged 200+ stakeholders from across the energy sector who all articulated a need for an open standards-based approach to facilitate the sharing of data within the industry.
We recognise that the users needs are diverse and encompass millions of datasets from consumers, providers and regulators. Our research in Phase 1 highlighted the risks to implementation unless governance is addressed as well as an overwhelming objection to a ‘single data platform’.
Our recommendation is to create a critical piece of innovation (the Open Energy Governance Platform) which will enable a decentralised approach, in which data and metadata is distributed, always up-to-date, and managed real time on data custodians' servers.
This platform will provide the common rules, controls and processes needed for access, discovery, security, commercial applications, privacy and regulatory compliance. This proven approach, novel to energy, will form the Common Data Architecture enabling an energy data ecosystem.
A single use-case about shared energy data to improve carbon contribution to the environment from social housing is being worked on by all the Advisory Groups.
We welcome feedback on the use-case.