Yusen Bai
Research Mentor: Justin Schott
Mentor Department: Energy Equity Project – SEAS, SNRE
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 4 (1:00 PM – 1:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 12
Abstract
Public Utility Commissions(PUCs)/Public Service Commissions (PSCs), the state agencies that regulate electric, gas and water utilities, are responsible for collecting reliability and shutoff metrics from large energy enterprises and ensure transparency and accountability. Timely and accurate uploading of accessible energy-related data by PUCs plays a critical role in promoting energy justice and supporting economic assistance for low-income populations. However, in reality, the energy data provided by PUCs are incomplete and have not been standardized. Data processors find it difficult to effectively track these energy data and provide one-on-one energy problem assistance to specific households, which has largely delayed the effectiveness of society’s advocacy for energy justice. We use data from the dockets and data portal from the governmental websites of PUCs and evaluate the spatial resolution, temporal resolution, accessibility and format of the data provided by agencies handling energy data in each state. These metrics can help us understand the possibility of establishing an interactive and automatically processing database based on an open government data portal. Based on our assessment, we have found that the systematically significant differences among states will greatly limit the possibility for the PUC data portal to be an interactive database in the future. We hope to provide PUC with effective suggestions that can facilitate the faster processing and analysis of data, enabling more data analysts to understand the locations in a state that most need energy assistance.
