Open letter to BNetzA: Making network data more usable

June 18, 2024 | In an open letter, the Reiner Lemoine Institute, together with an alliance of research, industry and associations, appeals to Germany’s Federal Network Agency Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) to make grid data even more usable. The initiative was prompted by the distribution system operators’ grid expansion plans recently published on the VNBdigital portal. The signatories see this as a disappointment. Due to the poor machine readability of the publications as PDFs, these important documents can only be interpreted and used with considerable difficulty.

The supervisory authority can help to improve utilisation by regulating the form of the regional scenarios and grid expansion plans to be published more clearly.

The alliance has formulated three specific measures for this. These can help to increase efficiency in the planning and implementation of grid expansion projects and accelerate the energy transition.

The signatories would like to use the letter and their experience to support the important digitalisation and publication of grid data and help to further improve this development with concrete tips. They are available to exchange ideas and also to work together with the BNetzA on suitable solutions for the requirements for grid data.

The three recommended measures include

1. machine-readable data format
2. quality specifications for network maps
3. open data licences