How would you use the City’s energy data for good?

The City of Philadelphia’s Energy Office, part of The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, is the information gatekeeper of the City government’s energy supply and demand, working to get cost effective, reliable, safe energy for the city. It’s also in charge of educating the other city offices on energy conservation, providing education, technical expertise, and analysis of energy findings.

Today, that office released its data inventory, joining eight other agencies in the movement of open data in Philly. For the technologically inclined, you’ll soon be able to see how the City’s primary offices are using their energy, down to a 15-minute interval. The Data Services Team has released this list of energy datasets that exist, to gauge public demand and inform prioritization of data releases.

How do you think the City should use this data? There is an open call from the Energy Office to gather feedback on how these data sets might be used for research, application development, and more. You can check out the list and submit ideas on the City’s website.

Why should you give feedback? When you do, it helps the city to prioritize what they’re going to do next. Even if you aren’t technologically savvy, the feedback is valuable for the office. For example, the Department of Commerce released three sets of data today on Open Data Philly:

• Economic Opportunity Plans – Capturing Minority/Women/Disabled Owned Business participation in many large construction projects led by public, private, and nonprofit organizations
• Storefront Improvement Grants – Recipients and locations of grant money to improve the exterior of their business, attracting more customers and improving the corridor on which they reside
• Office of Economic Opportunity Minority/Women/Disabled Owned Business Registry – List of all minority, women, and disabled owned businesses that have registered with the Office of Economic Opportunity (this info was already available, but now in a far easier to work with API format)

These data sets were prioritized by the department after publishing its own inventory earlier this year. Sharing which datasets would be important to you if released and helps the powers that be to understand why they should be prioritized and released first.

You can view the full list of datasets here.

Image via Flickr user Tim