Citation: Koupidis, K.; Bratsas, C.; Vlachokostas, C. OpEnergy: An Intelligent System for Monitoring EU Energy Strategy Using EU Open Data. Energies 2022, 15, 8294. https:// doi.org/10.3390/en15218294 Academic Editor: Antonio Zuorro Received: 14 October 2022 Accepted: 3 November 2022 Published: 6 November 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). energies Article OpEnergy: An Intelligent System for Monitoring EU Energy Strategy Using EU Open Data Kleanthis Koupidis 1 , Charalampos Bratsas 1,2 and Christos Vlachokostas 3, * 1 Open Knowledge Foundation Greece, 54352 Thessaloniki, Greece 2 Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, Alexander Campus, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece 3 Faculty of Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Sustainability Engineering Laboratory, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Box 483, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece * Correspondence: vlahoco@meng.auth.gr; Tel.: +30-2310-995968 Abstract: In this paper, the basic structure of anICT platform of energy indicators, Openergy, is ana- lytically presented, leveraging energy open data to help address the energy crisis more democratically. More specifically, its applicability as a dynamic tool for the management of climate, environmental, and socioeconomic information is described, and its efficiency in helping uncover insights for optimal data-driven decisions is depicted. Openergy uses data from the official portal for European data and the Eurostat site. Its database consists of data related to six energy categories, EU 2020 energy targets, energy balance, electricity production, transport fuels, heat production, and gas emissions, and each one includes its own indicators for EU countries. The platform includes visualizations of these data as well as time series modeling and forecasting, and the results are depicted at Openergy platform. The time series modeling provides forecasts with confidence intervals of each indicator until 2020 in each energy category. Empirical validation, RMSE, and MAE values showed that in almost all cases and estimations, the predicted values are in very good agreement with the observed values. Keywords: open data; energy indicators; intelligent systems; energy system; data analysis; informed governance 1. Introduction Stable, adequate, and secure energy is vital for the sustainable development of hu- manity. Sustainability presupposes economic development by ensuring climate change mitigation and adaptation, environmental protection, and social cohesion, e.g., [1]. Towards this direction, energy resources that are strongly related to economic development need to be sustainably managed. The 7th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development supports ensuring access to modern, sustainable, reliable, and affordable energy for all [2]. The EU demonstrates global leadership by considering energy strategies and initiatives, especially under the threat of climate change. The important pillars of EU’s energy policy are briefly (i) decarbonize towards a low-carbon economy, (ii) promote clean energy technologies, (iii) improve energy efficiency, (iv) cut emissions, (v) reduce dependence on energy import, (vi) ensure the functioning of a fully integrated internal energy market, and (vii) diversify Europe’s sources of energy. All these pillars need motives, objectives, and priorities in order to succeed in a “metamorphosis” of the energy sector. It goes without saying that energy consumption and the corresponding pressures on the environment and climate are accompanied by many unsustainable practices that humanity adopted in the past, which are still present in the energy system, e.g., [3–5]. Promoting and realistically developing strategies and policies that aim to achieve an integrated energy market, security of energy supply, and a sustainable energy sector is crucial and embedded in the core of the EU’s energy policy [6]. Themes such as distributed generation energy Energies 2022, 15, 8294. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218294 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies