I am impressed by the amount of power infrastructure data OSM has in the Czech Republic. To identify areas where one could still help mapping powerlines from orthophotos, I created a map showing the length of mapped powerlines (Tag:power=cable, Tag:power=minor_line, Tag:power=line) per unit area. The whiter a square is, the less powerlines it has (in the Czech Republic, I didn’t include neightbouring countries - used GeoFabrik’s Czech Republic extract).
I hope some will find this map useful. If you are into mapping something you would like to have a similar map for, let me know and I’ll have a go at creating such a map.
I created this map for Albania. Color of building is dependent on distance to gridlines. There are problems (ie I cannot yet create such a map for a bigger country like Slovakia or Ireland), but I can look into solving them if this is along the lines of what we want. Feedback is welcome.
On second thought, I don’t really like my Albania map. Once can only see building colors at the scale where the gridlines are clearly visible anyway, so I don’t see much point in such a visualisation.
I have thought a bit more about what other possibly useful visualisations I could create. I am also trying to come up with ways to determine the voltage of an already mapped gridline (I plan to post about this later). So, I visualised the following: length of gridlines without assigned voltage value.
Have you considered using a tool like this here to estimate the grid using night lights? Comparing this data with OSM Power Grid could help a lot to find areas with low coverage. https://github.com/carderne/gridfinder
I am also very interested in this. It looks like the dataset for the whole world can be downloaded here with the latest update from 2020: https://gridfinder.rdrn.me/
I think your colour scale is off here. Blue (for things near power lines). I wonder if red (for things far from power lines) should be at a distance of several km?
You often can’t see the power system in urban areas, as much of it will be underground. Admittedly, this will vary from country to country and town to town. Transformers can be a proxy for power lines in such cases.
Even with good aerial photos, it can be difficult to see overhead power lines that connect to individual buildings. Any building within 100 metres of a line over 1,000 volts should be considered to have its power network mapped.
Once you have a number associated with each building, based on how far it is from the power network, you can then apply your grid square system.
it to the Slovak OSM discussion group and I will also try to add the missing power lines by myself. Tomas_J
