Open Energy Ontology (OEO) — ENERO Principles Compliance#
Assessment of the Open Energy Ontology against the ENERO Foundry Principles.
Ontology Overview#
Ontology Name: Open Energy Ontology
Abbreviation: OEO
Homepage: https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology
Primary Repository: https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology
Main Contact / Maintainer: Mirjam Stappel (UOS) and Ludwig Hülk (RLI)
Scope and Purpose#
This domain ontology is a collaborative effort to represent the context of energy system analysis based on standard terminologies used by human experts in this field of research. It is designed to improve transparency and facilitate comparability and transferability of energy system modelling and scenario analysis. This ontology makes use of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and its principles.
Evaluation status legend#
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🟢 | Fully compliant |
| 🟡 | Partially compliant |
| ⚫ | Not yet implemented |
| ⚪ | Not yet evaluated |
Compliance to ENERO Principles#
| # | Principle | Status | Assessment | Key references |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Openness | 🟢 | Dual-licensed CC0-1.0 or MIT (user's choice). REUSE compliant. License annotation property present in source. | LICENSE-CC0 · LICENSE-MIT · REUSE.toml · license annotation |
| P2 | Common Format | 🟢 | Serialized in Manchester OWL Syntax (.omn). Release asset is oeo-full.owl, could be improved by also publishing oeo.owl as a primary downloadable artefact. |
Releases · Source |
| P3 | Release and Versioning | 🟢 | 33 tagged GitHub releases. CHANGELOG.md and VERSION file maintained. owl:versionInfo present in ontology header. Stable IRIs via openenergyplatform.org. Dedicated release team coordinates publication. |
Releases · CHANGELOG · VERSION |
| P4 | Documentation | 🟢 | Comprehensive: README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, CITATION.cff, GitHub Pages, GitHub Wiki (>20 articles), peer-reviewed publication, ontology viewer on OEP, and usage examples. | GitHub Pages · README · Wiki · Viewer |
| P5 | Collaboration and Responsiveness | 🟢 | Highly active: 140 stars, 31 forks, 6,952+ commits, 159 open issues, active Discussions tab. Regular developer meetings documented in Wiki. Steering Committee established. Multiple domain and ontology expert teams. Community onboarding via Open Energy Academy. Series of online user meetings (since 2025). | CONTRIBUTING · Dev meeting plan · Code of Conduct |
| P6 | Scope | 🟡 | Energy system modelling is a broad field. Organized in modules (physical, social, modelling, sector). Documented in README.md and scientific publication (Booshehri, Meisam, et al.). Modular structure and further clarification of domain boundaries needed. | README · DOI |
| P7 | Foundational Ontology | 🟢 | Explicitly BFO-aligned. BFO imported and used as upper ontology. All classes placed within the BFO hierarchy. Extensive BFO documentation in Wiki. | BFO upper ontology classes |
| P8 | Identifier and Naming Conventions | 🟢 | Stable numeric IRIs (e.g. OEO_00030024) ensure persistence but reduce human readability. Naming conventions documented in the Wiki. Term tracker annotation used for provenance. |
Term tracker annotation · Best practice principles |
| P9 | Textual Definitions | 🟢 | Definitions use IAO:0000115 following OBO Foundry conventions. Automated tests verify definition coverage. Coverage is high for classes; object properties less consistently covered. |
Verification tests |
| P10 | Usage of AI | ⚫ | No explicit AI usage policy implemented yet. Recommendation: add a statement to CONTRIBUTING.md. |
— |