Energy informatics: Current and future research directions

Due to the increasing importance of producing and consuming energy more sustainably, Energy Informatics (EI) has evolved into a thriving research area within the CS/IS community. The article attempts to characterize this young and dynamic field of research by describing current EI research topics and methods and provides an outlook of how the field might evolve in the future. It is shown that two general research questions have received the most attention so far and are likely to dominate the EI research agenda in the coming years: How to leverage information and communication technology (ICT) to (1) improve energy efficiency, and (2) to integrate decentralized renewable energy sources into the power grid. Selected EI streams are reviewed, highlighting how the respective research questions are broken down into specific research projects and how EI researchers have made contributions based on their individual academic background.