This is a static archive of our old OpenStreetMap Help Site. Please post any new questions and answers at community.osm.org.

Is there a way to include energy data in buildings ?

3

Hey guys, there are many people who are working on energy simulation and optimization for building, area or city. I think it would be great if it were possible to include some energy data in buildings objects as energy consumption, date of construction, type of heating, household consumption; etc...

Thanks in advance for any tips and comments about that.

asked 17 Jun '11, 08:25

Ponsfrilus's gravatar image

Ponsfrilus
46113
accept rate: 0%


2 Answers:

6

In OpenStreetMap, we usually try to map what's "on the ground", and easily verifiable by other mappers. It sounds to me as if the data you would like to see would have to be added from third-party sources (or by the homeowners themselves). While it is theoretically possible to add any number of specialist tags to buildings, I am not sure if what you have in mind really fits OSM.

Maybe it is better to have that extra data in a separate list (e.g. keyed by street address), and then if you want to create some kind of simulation, fetch the building shape from OSM and the extra energy data from your other source?

answered 17 Jun '11, 08:36

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
82.5k927201273
accept rate: 23%

edited 17 Jun '11, 09:10

SK53's gravatar image

SK53 ♦
28.1k48268433

2

in addition to what Frederik stated your idea would also not be very suitable for OSM because of the Level of Detail it requires. Still there is one established tag for the things you asked:

  1. date of construction: you can use the tag start_date for the date when a feature started to operate.
  2. energy consumption and household consumption: this is clearly private data and not suitable at all to be included into OSM. This is more a description of the people who live there then actually building data (despite what current legislation in some countries suggests)
  3. type of heating: This is what I aimed at with Level of Detail: we don't even have a well established way to identify single units inside a building, where would you attach the type of heating to? This is also private data IMHO.

answered 21 Jun '11, 12:25

dieterdreist's gravatar image

dieterdreist
3.7k113567
accept rate: 3%

Source code available on GitHub .