Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

Alex Pawlowski

 
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@alexpawlowski_

 
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https://slides.com/alexpawlowski/mycpp/live/

 
  • Background of Clean Power Plan
  • Goal of myCPP
  • EIA API
 
  • Github
  • Shiny
  • myCPP Tool v1 Demo
  • GitBook
  • Future
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

Outline

 

Clean Power Plan

 
  • Effort to cut US power plant emissions by 32% from 2005 levels in 2030 with state-specific plans
  • Implementation begins in 2022
  • Provide states flexibility in energy options to meet plan
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

What is it?

 
  • June 2014, proposed
  • Aug  2015, announced
  • Oct  2015, 24 states sue
  • Feb 9, 2016, Supreme Court stayed plan pending review
  • June 2016 - suit to be heard in DC District Court
1

Timeline

 
States that support / deny CPP image/svg+xml States that support / deny CPP Sue EPA Later joined Support EPA Neutral Exempt Hawaii Alaska New Hampshire Vermont Maine Rhode Island New York Pennsylvania Washington, D.C. Florida Michigan California Puerto Rico U.S. Virgin Islands Guam Northern Mariana Islands American Samoa

States' Views on Clean Power Plan

 

Goal of myCPP

 
  • easy to use, intuitive tool for policy stakeholders to understand potential strategies to meet CPP
    • use potential strategy to begin more detailed feasibility
  • help users visualize current energy sources in production and emissions impacts
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

Defined

 
  • Costs of power facilities aren't considered
    • costs can vary per state, incentives as well
    • proprietary concerns
    • wrong numbers can be worse than having none
  • energy from across states not currently considered
1

Limitations

 

     Data

 
  • REST API
    • return JSON or XML
    • use plant ID to send request
  • Data of interest
    • location of plant
  • Data not used
    • historical energy production
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

API

 
  • Real data of interest locked away in excel docs (that needed formatting anyhow)
    • Form 860 - Generation
    • Form 923 - Ops
  • Data of interest
    • heat rate of combustion plants
    • energy use / plant / state
    • energy demand
1

Excel forms :(

 
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  • Leveraging R with Shiny framework, while collaborating with a team
    • opportunity to introduce version control
    • introduce team to open source community
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

Goal

 
  • too many things introduced at a time
    • learning R
    • using RStudio
    • learning Shiny
    • learning git, github
  • "version control" :: emails
    • zip files
    • merge was fun...
1

Reality

 
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  • Framework developed by 
  • take R code and make a web "app" quickly
    • ui.R
      • simple input and output setup
    • server.R
      • reactivity for R 
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

What

 
  • can easily extend/expand

 

 

 

  • multiple tabs
  • control reactivity
  • easy deployment with shinyapps.io, but can run shiny server on web service of choice
1

Capabilities

 
Created by potrace 1.13, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2015 image/svg+xml
  • idea to initial setup: couple hours
  • time to v.1
    • a lot of love
    • deadlines
      moved up
      quickly, difficult for best diffusion of work
 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

Speed Development

 

Open Source Tool built on Open Source Tools

 
Created by potrace 1.13, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2015 image/svg+xml
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Benefits

 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 
Created by potrace 1.13, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2015
  • great for documentation
  • searchable
  • integrates with github (uses Git)
  • responsive
  • easily hook to custom domain
  • Written in Markdown
  • customize CSS

Gitbook

 

Features

 

Building an Interactive Visualization with 

engineers + scientists

 

The Team

 

Alex Pawlowski

 

Justin Knowles

 

Michelle Halsted

 

Jessica Velez

 

Sarah Eichler-Wood

 

Emilio Ramirez

 
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Links

 
Created by potrace 1.13, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2015

mycpp.gitbooks.io/mycpp/content/

 

bccpp.shinyapps.io/mycpp/

 

mycpp

 
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mycpp

By Alex Pawlowski

Made with Slides.com

mycpp

Short talk about lessons learned to lead a team to develop an interactive visualization tool.

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