Geographic Information Infrastructuressupporting Energy Infrastructures

Jeffrey D. Hamerlinck, PhD

Panel on Data Needs, Mitigation Methods and Tools for Siting and Permitting US DOE Quadrennial Energy Review Public Meeting: Infrastructure Siting

Cheyenne, Wyoming  |   21 August 2014

Geography matters in infrastructure siting 

Location

Condition

Human‐environment interaction

Place‐based economic sustainabilityis often constrained by social and environmental characteristics.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Place‐based decision making can be supported with spatial data infrastructures

Images: FGDC (L); Harvey, F. (R).

National Spatial Data Infrastructure

Challenges for SDI development, maintenance and sharingexist at all levels of jurisdiction

Geospatial technologies (including Web GIS) enable data‐to‐information transformations

Wyoming Initiatives

Source: http://energy.wyo.gov/Source: geospatialhub.org

Regional and national systems 

Source: http://westgovchat.org/

Geospatial challengesin energy infrastructure siting

• Data availability ‐ e.g., gaps• Data quality – e.g., current, 

complete• Data access – e.g., 

discovery, sensitivity• Maintenance – both data 

and applications

• Application adoption and use‐ ease of use, workflow integration

‐ supporting connectivity

• Interoperability – across spatial scales, jurisdictions, platforms, etc.