Public Energy Data Platform (Gulbenkian Foundation)

Summary

This energy analytics and commitment management platform empowers municipalities and stakeholders to track, analyze, and manage energy consumption data for data-driven sustainability policies. By consolidating decades of energy records from utilities, sensors, and historical sources, the system ensures accurate data standardization, visualization, and accessibility. Built on Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Firestore, Cloud Storage), it efficiently processes large-scale energy datasets, providing municipalities with interactive dashboards and predictive insights. A role-based access system enables admins, collaborators, and partners to monitor trends, set environmental commitments, and track progress. Designed with Agile methodologies and user-centric UX research, the platform has been adopted by 50+ municipalities, improving policy efficiency, transparency, and public trust in energy data. Recognized as the most reliable national energy analysis tool, it has streamlined municipal energy management, positioning the client as a leader in civic tech innovation.

Challenges

• Data Consolidation & Standardization: Integrating decades of energy usage data from various sources (utilities, sensors, historical records) required extensive data cleaning, normalization, and validation to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Scalability & Performance: The platform needed to handle large volumes of data across multiple municipalities without performance bottlenecks, while remaining flexible for future expansions such as IoT smart meters.
• User Access & Role Management: The system had to accommodate different user roles (Admins, Collaborators, Partners) with tailored access rights and functionalities, ensuring data security and controlled permissions.
• Energy Data Availability & Public Transparency: The platform aimed to increase energy data accessibility and visualization capacity for municipalities and the public, enabling a clear understanding of energy consumption trends and the state of energy spending across different regions.

Solution

• Modular Architecture: Developed a modular platform allowing municipalities to register and manage their environmental action commitments, based on prior calculations, metrics, and insights.
• User-Centric Design: Conducted UX research to design key user flows and structured data, resulting in tailored sitemaps for each user type. This approach guided the creation of final mockups and prototypes, ensuring a seamless user experience.
• Admin: The client’s specialists could update the platform and provide assistance as needed.
• Collaborator: Counties could access insights and utilize tools to responsibly submit commitments for emission reduction goals.
• Partner: Initiative partners could consult the platform to monitor progress.
• Agile Development: Employed Agile methodologies with weekly stakeholder feedback sessions, allowing for iterative prototyping, continuous refinement, and alignment with user needs.

Impact

• Adoption: The platform became a critical tool for 50+ municipalities, enabling data-driven energy policies and optimizations.
• Recognition: Acknowledged as the most reliable platform for energy consumption analysis nationwide, significantly improving trust in data for decision-making.
• Efficiency: Municipalities reported saving time and resources by relying on the platform’s analytics instead of manual reports.
• Reputation: The project's success enhanced the client's reputation as a leader in civic tech innovation.

How it was built

• Data PipelinePython scripts for automated extraction and transformation of energy consumption data from CSV files.
• Cloud InfrastructureGoogle Cloud Platform services, including BigQuery for scalable data analysis and Cloud Storage for secure data storage.
• FrontendReact.js for interactive and responsive user interfaces, catering to diverse user roles.
• BackendNode.js and Express.js for robust API development, facilitating seamless communication between the frontend and backend.
• DatabaseFirestore (NoSQL) for efficient storage of processed data and metadata, ensuring rapid data retrieval.
• SecurityImplementation of OAuth 2.0 protocols for secure authentication and authorization, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations.
• MethodologiesAdoption of Agile methodologies with weekly stakeholder feedback sessions, ensuring iterative development and continuous improvement.

Gallery

Municipal Emissions Calculation Platform

County Facing Views ​

This serves as a critical tool for municipalities in Portugal to track, analyze, and reduce carbon emissions from various energy sources, providing a data-driven dashboard with key metrics and insights across municipal, regional, and national levels.

Platform for Municipal Climate Action Commitments

Public facing views

This follow-up project builds on the Calculations platform, enabling municipalities to register and manage carbon reduction commitments based on previously provided metrics and insights, featuring a public website for initiative promotion and a dedicated platform for participants to track progress, register actions, and collaborate with the client’s specialists and partners.