Unionized Data Governance

How to do personal energy data governance? With the move to Energy as a Service (EaaS), flexible energy services, where home generators and storage assets are being managed, how can the personal data generated by these home assets be governed? Who decides what data will be used, for what purposes? Will the energy sector just hand the problem (and the personal data) over to the tech industry, and let it take control of the energy system and homes?

Working on secondment to the ReFLEX Orkney project I have been exploring new strategies for new energy-data futures. ReFLEX Orkney is a £28.5 million demonstrator project 50% funded by UKRI and 50% from private investment.

In collaboration with my colleagues at IT University of Copenhagen (Philippe Bonnet, Irina Shklovski, Sebastian Büttrich, Niels Ørbæk Chemnitz) we have developed the concept of the ‘Data Union’ to negotiate and govern personal energy data within a flexible energy system such as a Virtual Power Plant.

This builds on my previous work and whitepaper on the convergence of the tech and energy sectors.