Help File for Navigating GEOwiki: A Global Database of Electric Power Plants

• Scope of the Project
• Organization of Power Plants Data
• View Data
• View and Edit Data
• Add New Plants
• History of Edits
• Download Data
• Analyze Data

Scope

The goal of this project is to provide a platform for understanding, visualizing and analyzing global energy systems that will help the world accelerate the transition to cheap clean energy for all. We propose to achieve this by providing a comprehensive view of energy systems and examine global needs, responsibilities and impacts of energy generation, transmission and use. By mapping scientific information in a format that is easy to access and visualize we wish to engage both the experts and the public in this discussion. Global Power Plants is the first of five planned modules (each will have geospatial and time referenced data) that are in different stages of development:

1. Power Plants (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, waste and diesel/oil)
2. Energy Resources (coal and uranium mines, oil and gas fields, oil refineries, wind power density, solar insulation)
3. Energy Transmission (pipelines, ports and terminals, electric power grid, railway lines, shipping)
4. Distributed power generation installations (solar, geothermal, wind)
5. End-use of fuels and electric power (commercial and domestic)

This observatory is a prototype for similar efforts envisioned to facilitate analyses of water, food, public health and natural resources. The databases aim to address three needs simultaneously:

1. A validated database that is organized to provide a comprehensive description, easy access, user friendly interface to allow the public to provide additional/new information, and that facilitates scientific analysis
2. A discussion forum attached to each entry (for example, each power plant) for format-free contributions.
3. Visualization of location, distributions, connections and networks using open GIS tools that include Google Maps and Google Earth

Organization of Power Plants Data

The global data for power plants are organized alphabetically by

1. Power plant type (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, waste and oil)
2. Country
3. State (primary geographical division within a country)

Plant data consist of geospatial location, plant characterestics, plant performance, resources used, emissions, capital and operating costs, comments and references.

View Data

This facility is still under construction. At present you can get a geospatial display of all power plants (of a selected type and in a selected country) using Google Maps. The popup for a givenplant contains a link to the View and Edit Data page for that plants.

1. Select power plant type after clicking View on the GEOwiki page
2. Select country from pop up list of countries for which we have data
3. Selection of country generates a list of states for which there exist data and the list of all power plants for that country
4. Select a state and the data will be restricted to power plants in that state or choose All to select all states and all power plants for that country
5. Lastly you have the option to select a power plant you wish to view from the list of power plants
6. Click on Load Map Below and all the selected power plants will be displayed using Google Maps. Clicking on a placemark will show you the name of that plant.
7. OR click on Load Map in new tab/window and all the selected power plants will be displayed in a new tab/window using Google Maps. In this window, clicking on a placemark will give you the option of loading the "view and edit data" form for that plant

View and Edit Data

The view and edit data facility allows users to edit data for a particular plant. Clicking on View and Edit link loads a page that allows users to select a power plant for editing (adding to) existing data.

1. This function requires you to register (create a login and password) and login.
2. First select power plant type from pull down menu
3. Select country from pop up list of countries for which we have data
4. Selection of country generates a list of states for which there are data and the list of all power plants of selected type for that country
5. Selecting a state will restrict the list of power plants to that state or choose Allstates option
6. Select the power plant you wish to view and edit
7. Click on View and Correct Data for this plant and an editable form with all existing information for that power plant will pop up
8. All data fields are editable. Please provide justification and sources for all edited data by adding comments and/or references. Click on submit update after you have made all the changes.
9. You have two ways to correct geo-coordinates:
• Drag the placemark on GoogleMaps to the correct place or
• Type in the correct latitude and longitude in the respective boxes and click "Update".
10. To correct data in any other field just edit the appropriate box. At the end of your editing session, please click on "Submit Update" to save changes.
11. Please enter data only in appropriate format described in glossary file. If you have short comments on the data, please do so by creating and entering it in a new comment box.
12. Please provide references to data you submit otherwise we will not be able to validate it. To add a reference, click on the button "Add Another Reference" which will create a new box for you to fill.
13. Entries in the two tables "Units" and "Annual Performance" and the comments and references have select buttons on the left. These allow selective actions, for example, deleting units, plotting selected fields (using Select Fields and plot vs. years button), etc.
14. Select Fields and plot vs. years button: This feature pops up a plot of the performance data for fields selected versus all years for which there are data.
15. Submitted data will be reviewed by moderators before it is accepted as part of our moderated database
16. CAUTION: The data loaded in the forms is always the last moderated version. Your edits are recorded and can be viewed under both the history of edits page and by reloading the plant through the view and edit page and clicking on View History of Edits for this plant.
17. This is an open database. Please respect copyrighted and proprietary data. Provide only publicly available data that can be referenced or data generated/collected by you
18. To download data as a KML file use the "Download Data" option on the menu bar. We provide data by decade. Each decade has to be done separately otherwise the tables and the file becomes too big.

Add New Plants

To add a new power plant (requires registration and Login.)

1. First select power plant type from pull down menu
2. Select country from pop up list of countries
3. Selection of country generates a list of states. Select the state in which the power plant to be added is located
4. Click on Add Plant and an editable blank form for that type of power plant will pop up
5. All data fields are editable. Please provide summary justification for all data added in comments and/or references. Click on submit update after you have made all the changes.
6. There are two ways to add geo-spatial coordinates of the plant:
• Edit the latitude and longitude boxes and click update to move the placemark to new coordinates or
• Drag the placemark on Google Maps to the correct location
7. Click submit update at the end to save changes!
8. Submitted data will be reviewed by moderators before it is accepted as part of our moderated database. Until then it can be viewd under the History of Edits page
9. This is an open database. Please respect copyrighted and proprietary data. Provide only publicly available data that can be referenced or data generated/collected by you

History of Edits

History of Edits (requires registration and Login.)

1. A list of all the power plants that have been edited or added are shown in two separate tables
2. In the edited plants list, select any two versions of the plant to see differences or load one for viewing.
3. Load any plant in the added power plant list by clicking on it.
4. The history of changes for an individual power plant page can be seen by loading that plant under the View and Edit option

Download Data

To Download data (requires registration and Login)

1. We plan to provide data in a number of common formats. Currently output in only KML format has been implemented.
2. Choose from pull down menus power plant type, country (All is a valid option for both fields but please be warned that this choice may create very large files and the connection may time out), and decade (we are providing data in 10 year slices to keep it manageable)
3. Click on Get Data. A KML file named GEOwiki_PP_[decade].kml with all the data you selected will be downloaded on to your machine
4. View this file on Google Earth
5. Output in other formats is under development.

Analyze Data

The following database query/analyses options have been implemented:

1. Retrieve information on Generating Units
2. Retrieve Performance Statistics