Towards ontological foundations of knowledge related to the emissions trading system

Abstract

ICT for a low carbon society is a new research topic, also supported by the current research programs of the European Commission. The main characteristic of this area is the presence of multi-disciplinary problems spanning from the energy and environment fields to macroeconomics and societal life. Energy plays a key role here as the energy market is tightly coupled with environmental policies. A common grounding for the application of the various analysis methods and tools has to be settled to solve these problems and to reach a holistic view of the society and of its possible evolutions. In this context, we focus on the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and analyze some challenges that can be addressed by ICT. Then we present a first step towards a formal specification of a common and integrated understanding of such domain, motivated by the challenges we have identified. In particular, we discuss the ontological foundations for the development of ETS-related ontologies, of which we present a first example together with a description of an envisaged practical application.

Semantics-based services for a low carbon society: An application on emissions trading system data and scenarios management

“…However, currently, there are several methodologies (as [De Nicola et al, 2009], [Fernández-López et al, 1997], and [Sure et al, 2004]) and Natural Language Processing tools (as AlchemyAPI [WR15] and Open Calais [WR16]) supporting modellers in the ontology engineering process. EREON has been developed through a top-down approach according to the ontology engineering methodologies based on upper-level concepts, such as the ETS ontological foundations [Ciorba et al, 2013]. However, also a bottom-up approach has been used by taking into account existing resources, such as the NIMs [WR3], [De Nicola et al, 2009].…”

“…This work originated from a scientific collaboration running between ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development [WR2]. Preliminary results were presented at two workshops ([Ciorba et al, 2013], [Camporeale et al, 2013]). In particular, the first paper describes the upper level ontology designed as a foundation for ETS-related ontologies.…”

Semantic Modeling of the Emissions Trading System

“…It should be noted that these views are not disjoint and, consequently, overlapping exists, consisting in a set of merging concepts (e.g., stakeholder, impact) and connecting together the different scopes of the ontology. A brief description of the three categories follows, as a more extensive presentation has been given in [4].…”

“…In [4] we presented our first results consisting in an upper level ontology designed as a foundation for ETS-related ontologies. Here we present: an European ontology named EREON (Ets-Related European ONtology), that currently focuses on the ETS context representation and related semantic rules; and a service-based architecture built on top of it, with the specification of two useful services, the former for data acquisition and the latter for data analysis.…”