11. Development of a Prototype Knowledge Discovery Portal for Energy Informatics

This chapter describes the development of a prototype knowledge discovery portal (KDP) for energy informatics. The research domain is Ireland which is increasingly challenged to achieve energy efficiency targets and to implement renewable energy systems (RES). The reason for undertaking this research is to provide a mechanism to disseminate information on energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to a number of sectors: community, educational, industrial and research. The prototype KDP was developed using design-science methodology. This chapter integrates information both in the horizontal and vertical axes. In the horizontal plane, it provides information to community users, educational bodies and industrial companies. In the vertical plane, it allows deeper access depending on the requirements of the user: from technological overviews to detailed data from the energy system (solar collectors, heat pump and wind turbine). Future work will involve further development of the portal and extending the KDP for energy to other technologies and sectors.