Sharing Energy Information Through INSPIRE -- SDI of the GREEK Regulatory Authority for Energy

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• published: 12 Jun 2013
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The Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), in cooperation with Geospatial Enabling Technologies (GET) Ltd, developed a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) in accordance to the provisions of the Greek Law 3882/2010 which harmonizes the INSPIRE Directive (2007/2/EC). The project goals and objectives included not only the compliance with the requirements of the Greek Law and the improvement of their internal procedures, but the provision of higher quality public services to stakeholders (companies, investors, citizens, public law bodies), as well. The development of the SDI was based on Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) aiming to utilize existing physical infrastructure and software. RAE is an independent administrative authority in Greece, established in July 2000, with competences directly related to the Greek energy market. Among its duties are the monitoring of operation of all sectors of the energy market (electricity, natural gas, oil products, renewable energy sources, cogeneration of electricity and heat etc.), collection and processing of information from companies in the energy sector, reporting to the Greek government and the Commission, advising etc. The Authority immediately realised the need for central management of both geospatial and attributive information in order to be assisted to the exercise of their duties, keeping the need for access to quality information as a priority. In this context, they integrated Information, Telecommunication, Knowledge Management, Process Standardisation Systems, and business operations with an enterprise Geographical Information System (GIS), through which geospatial information lifecycle was predefined, standardised and maintained. Being both an originator and owner of geospatial data, related to renewable energy resources, the RAE should comply with Law's No 3882/2010 provisions. Law implements the regulatory framework for the generation, management, and dissemination of geospatial information encapsulating the provisions of the INSPIRE Directive. Thus, RAE took advantage of the new perspectives, created from the adoption of the Directive, and proceeded to upgrade the existing System with the development and integration of a Spatial Data Infrastructure. The RAE SDI was developed using open standards, incorporating the components of a typical SDI. At the same time, RAE's internal procedures on the management of geospatial information were restructured and the System was enriched with sophisticated tools. The implementation of the SDI, as a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), followed the Waterfall model, involving: o User requirement capture and analysis o Development of the metadata system o Data preparation o Development of network services o Implementation of the GeoPortal o Data uploading and deployment of services. o Development of reporting and monitoring mechanisms. The development of the RAE Geospatial Map was based on the GET SDI Portal ® (FOSS), which was developed and is distributed by GET Ltd under the General Public License v3. Apart from being a Web mapping application (Web GIS), the RAE Geospatial Map is a valuable tool for consuming third-party SDI services at a national and international level by adopting internationally recognised and well established standards of interoperability services.. Obviously, the application has been customised in certain areas accordingly to the RAE users' requirements. Main features of the application are: o Visualisation of RAE's and third-party organisations' geospatial data o Search for specific RAE geospatial information, based on either spatial criteria or their business logic. Discovery of data and services using RAE's and third-party organisations' metadata catalogues. RAE developed an SDI, a Geospatial Map which represents one of the first efforts to provide Public Sector's geospatial data to the Greek public in accordance to the specifications of the INSPIRE Directive. Following the latest trend in application development, the Infrastructure was developed with open source technologies and RAE offers free and interoperable access to their geospatial data and metadata, in accordance with the Greek Law No 3882/2010. RAE maintains and supports the system and its services with own means, hoping that the SDI will add value to their offered services. In the meantime, RAE is in the process of designing and incorporating new functionality and level 5 services while trying to achieve full compliance with the Directive (data conformance, quality of services, etc). by G. Mavrellis, T. Vakkas, S. Markogiannakis, S. Kamilieris and A. Mitrou