Someone has gone ahead and put the world's grid infrastructure on a single interactive map. The project is called OpenGridWorks. It runs on aggregated data from OpenStreetMap, ENTSO-E, Global Energy Monitor, OurGridFuture and others. Two clicks and you can see which transmission lines, substations and data centres overlap at any point on the globe.
The numbers: 120,000+ operating power plants, more than 2.7 million HV and MV lines, over 800,000 substations. It is not "real time" — it is a set of previously disparate datasets stitched into one view, the kind of thing engineers used to glue together by hand.
Available layers:
- power plants;
- transmission lines;
- substations;
- gas pipelines;
- data centres;
- planned transmission-line projects;
- submarine communications cable routes;
- flood-risk zones (WRI Aqueduct).
To the sources listed above add EIA, HIFLD, IM3, PNNL, DOE, WRI and TeleGeography. The base map is CARTO and OpenStreetMap.
Coverage is uneven: OSM, ENTSO-E and Global Energy Monitor provide the global baseline, while EIA, HIFLD and some of the data-centre layers are noticeably more detailed for the United States.
Handy for a fast visual scan: how generation lines up with grid infrastructure, how data centres cluster around substations, the geography of planned transmission lines, the overlap between the electric grid and submarine communications cables.