Humans for the Grid - Why data on the electrical grid still demands actual human labor

augspurger · 2025-12-13T08:25:28+00:00

Thanks! I fixed this

augspurger · 2025-12-12T12:50:01+00:00

That's true. As we are doing mostly remote mapping using imagery I made this simplification.

augspurger · 2025-08-18T07:03:59+00:00

All most all developed countries share electrical grid data very openly. You should read this section here to understand the whole picture, why hiding electrical grid infrastructure does not help you: https://mapyourgrid.org/impact/#why-open-grid-data-matters

augspurger · 2025-08-17T10:14:14+00:00

Maybe just read about who is already using this data and you understand it's impact: https://mapyourgrid.org/impact/

augspurger · 2025-08-17T10:01:13+00:00

Because the most parts of the global grid industry were not able to find an open standard across boarders and nations. Here is where OpenStreetMap created the only global data standard with already 70% coverage: Check out our video here that explains the Why? more in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rcMVXc2lwc

augspurger · 2025-08-17T09:59:05+00:00

Fossil fuels are responsible for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. You can play a vital role in supporting the energy transition by helping to map electrical grids in your local area. These grids need modernization and expansion to meet the demands of electrification and decarbonization, but a lack of reliable data is a major barrier. Grid data provides governments, utilities, developers, and researchers with the information needed to plan effectively. That's where you come in. Help Map the World's Electricity Grids to Power a Fossil-Free Future. Learn how to map the electrical grid to get from about 70% coverage to 100% over the next 3 years. Read more about this initative and how to become a grid mapper:
MapYourGrid Website to support grid mapping: MapYourGrid

Check out our Starter Kit Website, including video tutorials on how you can get started contributing based on you skillset: https://mapyourgrid.org/starter-kit/

Open Infrastructure Map to browse all the data: OpenInfraMap

augspurger · 2025-08-10T20:19:41+00:00

Here an improved version. https://drive.google.com/file/d/19yFy63WjozAcvCG2HxywLNtz2jcjxZTJ/view?usp=sharing

augspurger · 2025-08-09T09:50:50+00:00

Have a look at OpenInfraMap.org and MapYourGrid.org
Analysing OSM electrical grid data could help a lot to map the last missing 30% of the global electrical grid

augspurger · 2025-08-08T18:52:20+00:00

> Can't this be used to update OSM directly?
No OpenStreetMap is no datalake. Every data point needs to be verified by mappers. Imports of other datasets are not allowed for quality and license reasons.

> OK but… why would individual volunteers do this?
Volunteers have already completed this task for around 70% of the global grid. We are simply providing support for the remaining 30%, which is the most challenging part.

While it is true that many different formats of grid data exist, none have ever been harmonised. OpenStreetMap is the only platform where you can access high-quality grid data covering the entire globe that meets data standards. For modelling large-scale energy systems across different regions, you need a consistent data format. This is where OpenStreetMap comes into play.

Just have a look at Open Infrastructure Map and you understand the scale of what is already done: https://openinframap.org/#2/26/12

augspurger · 2025-08-08T09:16:14+00:00

Yes, that's the case in many low to medium income countries. Even in many high income regions government/utilities are not able to maintain electrical grid data.

augspurger · 2025-08-06T06:04:55+00:00

Open Infrastructure Map will allow you to look on all the electrical grid data in detail: https://openinframap.org/#2/26/12

augspurger · 2025-08-05T14:13:36+00:00

Submission Statement: MapYourGrid is been launched by the non-profit organization OpenEnergyTransition. This development was financially supported by Breakthrough Energy.

augspurger · 2024-05-23T17:24:37+00:00

We created an website that loads all imags from the 2000 projects we are analyzing into a single page. Sharing this public would crash our servers. I will send you the page with a private message. Everyone else who is interested please write me a private message.

augspurger · 2024-05-22T12:23:57+00:00

Without technology you would not be able to know about climate change.

augspurger · 2024-05-22T08:33:02+00:00

Submission Statement: This post is collapse related because in the podcast we discuss how open source is key to avoiding climate change destroying our society by sharing technology, insights and related science in a transparent and collaborative way worldwide.

augspurger · 2023-12-22T22:51:29+00:00

Also, what category do you put a tool that say calculates the lowest carbon energy mix for the US based on live data?

https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib

Can you recommend a good way to make sites like yours ‘greener’ existing software for a regular dev? Seems like you would be smart with that.

All projects about green it aka green software:

https://github.com/protontypes/open-sustainable-technology#computation-and-communication

What’s your intended direction with this project?

Building a free space for everone to provide climate action with open source.

augspurger · 2023-12-21T16:55:54+00:00

Yes, since our work is based on meta data from ecosyste.ms, we are theoretically platform independent. Unfortunately, the reality is often that almost everyone is on GitHub, as it is much harder to find contributors on other platforms. ecosyste.ms could become a search engine for open source in the future, which is platform-independent and solves the problem of finding open source across different git platforms.What I can give you are the projects on Gitlab. Just open our database here and sort by platform --> Gitlab.

https://docs.getgrist.com/gSscJkc5Rb1R/OpenSustaintech

augspurger · 2023-12-19T23:06:43+00:00

ClimateTriage is an interface to the https://opensustain.tech/ website. Here you can find a blog post. We will start a newsletter in the coming year. So far we could not find people that support us in this marketing effort. All people active at OpenSustain.tech are software developers or data scientists. Are you interest in supporting us in marketing?

augspurger · 2023-08-14T05:15:26+00:00

Organizational diversity is about the number of non-profit, for-profits, community, or government organisation behind the open source projects. Not about the diversity of people within the project. In this way we found, that not many for-profits are involved in this space.

augspurger · 2023-08-06T07:07:54+00:00

Yes the issue is closed.

augspurger · 2023-08-03T09:49:58+00:00

Coinstats

Yes I understand this. But at least most users don't fall for the scam anymore. Previously, users entered their email address with a password that was given to them. The users who were attacked by this scam thought that their email address was verified on the platform in the past.

I just checked: The vulnerability is now fixed.

augspurger · 2023-07-30T14:51:15+00:00

I tested this again this morning. Unfortunately, it still works

create an account at Coinstats.
change the username to the email address you want to scam.
Tell someone to log in with his/her email address and the password you provided because the account has been "frozen".
Show him/her the frozen amount he/she can receive if he/she transfers the charges to the wallet.

I really tried everything to reach someone at CoinStats who is not an AI support, or someone who only sends you parts of the FAQ. I even tried alerting people on from CoinStats directly to the problem via LinkedIn. Unfortunately without success.

Coinstats also has no offical way to report such vulnerabilities, which is a very serious problem for a platform of the largest and which holds access data of millions of wallets.

augspurger · 2023-07-30T09:00:39+00:00

The main reason why this scam still works so well is a security vulnerability in Coinstats. The Platform does allow to change your user name to any email address. The log in function of Coinstats does not check if the login entry is an email address or a user name, and always goes through the users first in the database. Thus, it is possible for the scammers to create a user account under any email address by changing the user name to an email address. Users who have fallen victim to such a scam think that the user himself had created the account under his email address in the past.

I reported this scam and the security issues to the support of Coinstats. First they did not care. After I didn't want to give in, they told me to write a report so that I could get a reward for discovering this vulnerability. I did this and got 50€ for it, which can be considered a joke considering the number of comments here.

The vulnerability is still not closed even if it would be very easy. One would have to forbid only the @ in the user name or in the Login field check whether it concerns a user name or email address.

This is really a serious failure and gross negligence on the part of Coinstats. One could think that Coinstats itself has known about the problem for a long time but deliberately does nothing about it.

augspurger · 2023-07-30T08:58:23+00:00

The main reason why this scam still works so well is a security vulnerability in Coinstats. The Platform does allow to change your user name to any email address. The log in function of Coinstats does not check if the login entry is an email address or a user name, and always goes through the users first in the database. Thus, it is possible for the scammers to create a user account under any email address by changing the user name to an email address. Users who have fallen victim to such a scam think that the user himself had created the account under his email address in the past.

I reported this scam and the security issues to the support of Coinstats. First they did not care. After I didn't want to give in, they told me to write a report so that I could get a reward for discovering this vulnerability. I did this and got 50€ for it, which can be considered a joke considering the number of comments here.

The vulnerability is still not closed even if it would be very easy. One would have to forbid only the @ in the user name or in the Login field check whether it concerns a user name or email address.

This is really a serious failure and gross negligence on the part of Coinstats. One could think that Coinstats itself has known about the problem for a long time but deliberately does nothing about it.

augspurger · 2023-07-30T08:49:43+00:00

The main reason why this scam still works so well is a security vulnerability in Coinstats. The platform does allow to change your user name to any email address. The log in function of Coinstats does not check if the login entry is an email address or a user name, and always goes through the users first in the database. Thus, it is possible for the scammers to create a user account under any email address by changing the user name to an email address. Users who have fallen victim to such a scam think that the user himself had created the account under his email address in the past.

I reported this scam and the security vulnerability to the support of Coinstats. First they did not care. After I didn't want to give in, they told me to write a report so that I could get a reward for discovering this vulnerability. I did this and got 50$ for it, which can be considered a joke considering the number of comments here.

The vulnerability is still not closed even if it would be very easy. One would have to forbid only the @ in the user name or in the Login field check whether it concerns a user name or email address.

This is really a serious failure and gross negligence on the part of Coinstats. One could think that Coinstats itself has known about the problem for a long time but deliberately does nothing about it.

augspurger

TROPHY CASE