“Better organization and availability of this data will allow for more informed decisions about where to reinforce electrical grids and how to prepare for hurricanes and floods,” the study researcher added
SANTO DOMINGO.– The Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) yesterday released the results of a diagnostic study on the current state of geospatial data in the national energy sector, identifying the need to promote a governance plan for the management, documentation, updating, and exchange of geospatial data in the Dominican energy sector.
The study proposes the creation of a Spatial Energy Data Infrastructure in the Dominican Republic, a set of agreements, standards and tools that will allow the integration and coherent use of geographic data generated by different institutions in the sector.
This proposal, put forward by researcher Ramón Emilio De Jesús-Grullón, a member of the Energy Resilience and Microgrids Research Group at PUCMM, stems from the identification of two weaknesses within the energy system. The first is that geospatial information for the energy sector is dispersed, frequently shared through informal mechanisms, and does not always have accessible documentation (metadata) or updates.
RD is out of the committee
The research highlights that the main institutions in the energy sector are not members of the Coordinating Committee of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Dominican Republic (IDERD), which limits their formal participation in national efforts to coordinate and interoperably geospatial data.
Ramón Emilio De Jesús-Grullón, in his research work entitled “Data Governance Plan for the Development of the Dominican Republic Energy Spatial Data Infrastructure”, explains that these weaknesses were identified after examining geospatial data and institutional documents related to electrical infrastructure, service reliability indicators, social vulnerability, climate threats and energy resources.
Data distributed among institutions that require custody
The study reviewed data management and access practices of institutions linked to the sector. “Currently, important data on electrical grids, service interruptions, and climate risks are often distributed among different institutions, with varying levels of access and documentation,” the researcher added.
The author explains that this new proposal for the creation of a Spatial Energy Data Infrastructure establishes clear responsibilities for safeguarding, updating, and sharing data on electrical grids, service reliability, climate threats, and social vulnerability. “Better organization and availability of this data will allow for more informed decisions about where to reinforce electrical grids, how to prepare for hurricanes and floods, and how to prioritize investments that improve service reliability,” added the author, who presented this work as part of the Energy Modelling Platform–Global (EMP-G) Summer School held in Trieste, Italy.
Ramón Emilio De Jesús-Grullón indicated that the proposal will help ensure that geospatial data for the energy sector no longer relies on isolated requests or informal agreements, but rather becomes an organized, documented, and useful resource for the country. The new infrastructure could initially be developed by PUCMM itself, with interoperability to the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Dominican Republic (IDERD), a national platform that currently unifies data, standards, and technology for sharing geographic information.
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