KAPSARC creates energy data marketplace to inform policy making
annual downloads
datasets
countries
Company profile
Based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) is a leading advisory think tank focused on global energy economics and sustainability. Its mission is to advance Saudi Arabia’s energy sector and inform global policies through evidence-based advice and applied research.
Sector
Utilities & energy
Location
Saudi Arabia
Data leader
Challenges: Making energy data available to all
One of KAPSARC’s key objectives is to produce internationally recognized applied research, tools and data to inform global policymaking on energy, climate and sustainability. As part of this, we publish several insightful publications every year, based on extensive research and the collection of energy data from sources across the globe. To meet our aims, we needed to be able to share this data internally and externally, enabling its simple, free reuse.
We provide insights and viable policy enabling tools for decision makers. Our experts develop publications with robust analysis. This analysis needs diverse data sources and preparation, so we wanted to extend the data access to broader researchers to further advance research. Open data makes this possible.
Data experience: Creating a comprehensive resource for researchers
At KAPSARC we understood that the optimal way to share the data our researchers had collected was via an online data marketplace. Our aim was to share three broad types of data:
- Model-ready machine-readable data that researchers could access via APIs or common file formats, and use within their own models and third-party software
- Indexed data from external sources, taken from PDFs to make it easier to find and use
- Accessible data, allowing researchers to replicate studies
We launched the KAPSARC public data marketplace in 2016, aimed at primarily sharing energy data with researchers around the globe. As the data marketplace has grown, datasets focused on other themes (such as industry, transport and COVID) have been added. The data marketplace now covers 16 themes and features a range of infographics and dashboards for users.
Accessible energy data is at the core of the data marketplace. Energy supply information on subjects such as the production and price of crude oil, natural gas, nuclear, electricity and renewables is supplemented by data on energy use across the transport, industry, agriculture and residential sectors.
Datasets on the data marketplace can be easily filtered by country, and KAPSARC is committed to publishing an increasing number of datasets in these 16 themes (energy, economy, climate, etc.) concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Bringing data to life, we have created maps and visualizations around key data, including using weather data to measure energy use, helping researchers and policymakers to make better-informed decisions.
Understanding progress towards Net Zero is a key objective for KAPSARC, and the data marketplace provides a range of datasets that include information on country targets, historic emissions and a range of mitigation measures, such as hydrogen and renewable production. As these are designed to appeal to a wider audience, they are visualized through infographics and dashboards, providing an at-a-glance view of Net Zero targets, what they cover and when they will be achieved.
Encouraging registration to better meet user needs:
Given the volume and variety of datasets available on the data marketplace, KAPSARC has to meet the needs of a wide range of different users from across the globe. While we are able to monitor where visitors are from geographically and their organizations, we wanted to go further in order to better understand how data was being reused. We therefore launched a registration option, encouraging users to provide their details before they can access and create visualizations. This helps us to track data reuse and enables the KAPSARC team to focus our efforts on publishing relevant data for all audiences.
Huwise: The all-in-one data product marketplace for data sharing at Kapsarc
While we initially looked to create our own data marketplace, we quickly realized that developing internally would be expensive and time-consuming. We therefore chose Huwise to provide its data data marketplace solution. In particular, we are benefiting from three Huwise features:
Ease-of-use and speed of publication
At KAPSARC we have clear targets for our data marketplace. We wanted a platform that allowed authors to publish datasets within 10 minutes, and that could scale to cover large volumes of data. Working with Huwise, KAPSARC achieved these goals, and was able to launch a first, beta version of the data marketplace internally within 30 days. The user-friendly interface makes it easy for the team to quickly publish data while ensuring quality standards are met.
Creating compelling visualizations to bring data to life
As the subjects of energy and climate become crucial to us all, we have focused on appealing to a wider audience. As well as making data available via tables and APIs, we are building a library of easily understandable visualizations, including maps, infographics and dashboards using Huwise tools. These data stories bring datasets to life, providing non-technical audiences with key insights that they can use around policy and decision-making.
Technical excellence around search
Being able to find relevant datasets is vital for users, particularly given the range of information contained within the KAPSARC data marketplace. When choosing a solution we therefore specified that it included Elasticsearch as a key component to aid data discovery. Not only does Huwise use Elasticsearch as standard, but since implementation it has extended available search options, notably by adding AI-based semantic search, to provide contextual and natural language search which KAPSARC has already deployed.
Results: Seamlessly connecting researchers with data
Thanks to our data marketplace, we are meeting our key objective of providing relevant tools and data to inform global policymaking, seeing results in three key areas:
- Increasing engagement across the world
By monitoring IP addresses, we are able to see that the data marketplace is used by a truly global audience. Visitors come from 160 countries, with the largest numbers from Saudi Arabia and North America. Since launch, the data marketplace has seen enormous growth in sharing, moving from 8,000 to 210,000 downloads since 2016 and over 5 million API calls per year.
- Publishing growing volumes of data
Huwise’s ease-of-use has enabled our team to dramatically increase the number of datasets that the data marketplace offers. It has grown from 40 datasets at launch to over 1,550, and we are committed to add 100 datasets per year going forward. The data marketplace now covers an expanded range of themes, moving beyond energy to related fields such as climate change, industry and GDP.
- Meeting the needs of new audiences
Initially, the data marketplace solely focused on researchers, providing them with data for their models and projects. Thanks to the expansion of subjects it covers, new, less-specialist audiences, such as policymakers, ministers and decision-makers now require access to relevant datasets. Through its ongoing creation of infographics and dashboards, KAPSARC is now able to meet their needs with compelling visualizations that bring data to life.
"Huwise has supported us all the way through our data sharing journey. Rather than a supplier, they are very much part of our extended team, responding quickly to our needs and enabling us to grow the data marketplace, reach new audiences and help us achieve our objectives of delivering relevant data to the global research community."
"The success of KAPSARC’s data marketplace shows the power of data sharing in action. Not only is it helping fuel the global energy research community, but increasingly the information it publishes is becoming critical to decision-making around climate change and the vital shift to Net Zero."
About the Data leader
Amar Amarnath
Director of Solutions Productization, Kapsarc
Amar Amarnath, Director of Solutions Productization at Kapsarc
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