Securing and Preserving Energy Data from the Harvard Dataverse

In this project, scientists from the Reiner Lemoine Institute are securing international energy research data and republishing them on the Open Energy Platform (OEP) in Germany in order to make valuable research results permanently available independently of non-European infrastructures.

Background and motivation

The project team is backing up data sets from completed energy research projects at RLI, some of which have so far been stored exclusively in  the Harvard Dataverse in the USA. This includes, for example, data from the PeopleSuN project with extensive information on energy supply and energy use in rural regions of Nigeria. Together with the local organization eHealth Africa, RLI scientists in Nigeria surveyed around 4700 households and companies and thus created a comprehensive open dataset with qualitative and quantitative data on actual energy use in Nigeria. How much electricity is needed, when, where and by whom? The answers to these questions are provided by this data. They are to be stored in Europe in the long term in order to strengthen European data sovereignty.

Transfer to the Open Energy Platform

The experts transfer the datasets to the OEP, an established research data infrastructure that is structured according to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and Open Science principles. The researchers restructure the data, integrate it into a relational database and enrich it with extensive metadata according to the OEMetadata standard. This makes the data machine-readable, easier to find, and can be used by other researchers or other users.

Added value for research and society

The PeopleSuN data is widely used internationally, for example for energy system models, social science analyses and the planning of electrification projects. By securing this data on the OEP, this data will remain available to German, European and African stakeholders in the long term. In this way, they can continue to serve research and support well-founded decisions for sustainable energy supply.

Experience and sustainability

RLI has been actively involved in the development and operation of OEP for many years. Existing workflows for data publishing, data curation, versioning, and quality assurance ensure permanent availability of datasets. The embedding in the National Research Data Infrastructure via the NFDI4Energy project, in which RLI is also involved, ensures long-term operation beyond the project.

Project period: August 2025 to January 2026

• Review and technical analysis of existing datasets from the Harvard Dataverse
• Migration of data to the Open Energy Platform in Germany
• Structuring the data in a relational database
• Enrichment and harmonization of metadata according to OEMetadata standard
• Quality assurance and validation of data sets
• Ensuring FAIR principles and long-term availability