DATA CELLAR at the CFOAT Annual General Meeting

Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta’s (CFOAT) Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held in the community hall on Inis Mór, the largest of the three Aran Islands, on the 5th of March. The meeting was open to the public and was well attended with 3.5 % of participants joining online.  

As the Aran Islands are part of the Gaeltacht or Irish speaking part of Ireland, the meeting was carried out bilingually, with natural switching between English and Irish occurring. According to the latest Central Statistics Office Small Area Population Statistics (SAPS) figures from the 2022 census, 79% of the population of the islands speak Irish.  

During the meeting, a short description of EU and nationally funded projects in which CFOAT is participating was presented. Stephanie Brennan, Project Assistant, talked about Data Cellar’s aim and showcased two ‘real life’ examples from WP5 of useful tools/models that are being developed and tested using data from the Validation Cases. 

The first functionality of CIRCE’s Decision Support System was described, pointing out the advantages for users, e.g. data on self-consumption and what’s going to the grid, what the payback time for investment would be (useful when approaching financial institutions) and what the levelised cost of energy would be.

It was also outlined LINKS recommender system AI model, which would optimise energy resources and consumption based on user preferences be they comfort or cost saving for example.  

Having concrete examples of what data will be used for or how it can benefit the user makes it easier to approach householders to ask for permission to use their data.