Singularity Launches the Open Grid Emissions Initiative

The Open Grid Emissions Initiative is an open-source project that allows anyone to freely access high-quality & validated hourly grid greenhouse gas emissions data

BOSTON, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Singularity Energy, the most intelligent grid decarbonization platform built on top of a transparent, traceable data layer by experts from Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins, announced today the launch of Open Grid Emissions, an initiative which seeks to fill a critical need for high-quality, publicly-accessible, hourly grid emissions data for greenhouse gas accounting, policymaking, energy attribute certificate markets, and academic research. It includes a free & publicly available dataset of hourly, monthly, and annual U.S. electric grid generation, greenhouse gas, and air pollution data, all calculated using open-source, well-documented, and validated methodologies based on the best available science.

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Greg Miller, currently a Ph.D. Candidate at UC Davis and incoming Research and Policy Lead at Singularity, and Gailin Pease, Data Scientist at Singularity, spearheaded the initiative, with additional support from the Singularity team.

Singularity CEO & Founder Wenbo Shi said, "The Open Grid Emissions Initiative aims to build the much needed trust in granular grid emissions data, validate and improve the real-time estimates of grid emissions, and accelerate grid decarbonization research by making the dataset publicly available and open-sourcing its methodology. It furthers Singularity Energy's mission of driving forward decarbonization by providing users with the best data, software, and resources to understand, and meaningfully reduce their carbon emissions."

The Open Grid Emissions Initiative is built using the U.S. EPA's eGRID annual emissions methodology as its foundation, but integrates key innovations from existing peer-reviewed research, as well as certain novel methods to improve the data resolution and refine the emission calculations. Previous research has shown that in some regions, hourly GHG accounting can improve inventory accuracy by up to 35%, and that imported electricity can account for 20-40% of emissions in a region.

The dataset from the Open Grid Emissions Initiative is already being used by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). MISO is one of the largest grid operators in the country and has developed a pilot emissions portal in collaboration with Singularity Energy to show publicly available historical emissions data to its stakeholders. To view the MISO emissions portal, click this link.

Although the Open Grid Emissions Initiative is one step closer to better grid greenhouse gas emissions data, the dataset is still far from perfect and features many opportunities for improvements. The Singularity team has open-sourced the project in order to invite feedback and contributions from the broader community of data users and researchers. If you're interested in learning more about how you can contribute to the initiative, please click here.

For more information about Open Grid Emissions & Singularity Energy, please visit https://singularity.energy/.

About Singularity Energy

Founded in 2018, Singularity Energy is the most intelligent grid decarbonization platform built by experienced power systems and software experts from Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins. Singularity's platform provides high-quality, time and location-based grid emissions data, and a suite of innovative products such as developer APIs, and intelligent tools for grid operators, utilities, companies, and service providers to build data-driven decarbonization solutions. Singularity Energy is a winner of the Harvard Physical Science & Engineering Accelerator, the Greentown Labs Bold Idea Challenge in partnership with Schneider Electric, the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research Grant, and a URBAN-X company.

SOURCE Singularity