The Chair of Knowledge Processing in Hybrid AI Systems at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Osnabrück, headed by Prof. Dr. Till Mossakowski, focuses on ontologies, hybrid AI, and spatial reasoning. They were part of several major open-source software projects related to energy system analysis and were responsible for the software side of setting up the Open Energy Platform (OEP) and the large databases behind it. The former university of Prof. Mossakowski, the University of Magdeburg, currently acts as a neutral player, hosting the OEP and the databases. As part of NFDI4Energy, there are plans to relocate the servers to OFFIS.

The chair also contributes ontology expertise to the development of formal ontologies. In particular, the development of the Open Energy Ontology (OEO), which is being reused and further developed in NFDI4energy, and its Steering Committee (OEO-SC) is coordinated by the chair.

In addition, the chair conducts research on neurosymbolic integration, specifically on the connection between high-quality ontological background knowledge and deep learning methods. Large language models (LLMs) and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) are also used in this context.

Task Areas

• University of Osnabrück is involved in Task Area 4 and is responsible for Measure 4.6 which is concerned about the interoperability of energy related ontologies, in NFDI4Energy and beyond. This includes finding common standards and principles for the ontologies with respect to format, publication or development processes. Furthermore, it is addressing the challenges of defining meaningful and non-overlapping scopes between ontologies. Similar to OBO Foundry or IOF, an umbrella initiative called Energy Related Reference Ontologies Foundry (ENERO Foundry) was started in beginning of 2025 to coordinate these approaches.

Involvement

The University of Osnabrück is not part of any other NFDI consortia.

InfAI stands for applied research in data and AI – bridging academic excellence with practical, scalable solutions for digital infrastructures in science and industry. Within NFDI4Energy, InfAI contributes its expertise in metadata systems by enhancing the Databus and MOSS technologies to support FAIR data principles.

Contributions to the consortium include

• Advancing MOSS with improved search and usability through user-centered development.
• Developing tools for streamlined data upload and publication based on rich metadata.
• Creating KPI dashboards to monitor and visualize data usage across repositories.

InfAI brings experience in open-source infrastructures, interoperability, and user-driven innovation, ensuring that energy research data becomes more discoverable, reusable, and impactful.

Task Areas

InfAI is involved in Task Area 4 (Data, Metadata & Services) of NFDI4Energy. The specific tasks cover WP2–WP4:

• enhancing MOSS for improved search,
• developing tools for data upload & publication,
• creating KPI dashboards for data usage.

Involvement

InfAI is not part of further NFDI consortia besides NFDI4Energy.

At the Institute of Networked Energy Systems at the DLR, the overarching goal is to make the energy transition in the economy and society successful through research. The institute develops transformation strategies and technical solutions to efficiently link the electricity, heating, transport, and industrial sectors. To this end, it collaborates with partners from industry and research to build a holistic understanding of the system and to design effective system solutions.

The research teams consider all levels of the energy system in their work—from centralized large-scale infrastructures such as storage caverns to electricity and gas grids and the technical equipment of buildings. They take into account technical, economic, political, ecological, and social framework conditions and create valuable synergies through cooperation between technical and systems analysis research groups.

Within these areas of work, the institute generates large amounts of heterogeneous data, which it shares with the scientific community and society. Drawing on lessons learned from developing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) within DLR’s space research field, it applies tools for federating data sources and enabling their semantic understanding, inspired by the principles of the semantic web.

Task Areas

In Task Area 8, together with the InfAI, the Institute of Networked Energy Systems develops a federated interface to semantically discover energy system research data. The aim of the toolset of Databus and MOSS is the be able to annotate research data with multiple different metadata schemas from different research domains and to use this rich information to discover data.

Involvement

The Institute of Networked Energy Systems is also part of NFDI4ING, working on reproducible workflows for modelling exercises.

DLR is also part of NFDI4Earth, NFDI4Microbiota, and Punch4NFDI.

Öko-Institut brings expertise in various modelling exercises to the consortium. Öko-Institut is involved in the modelling of energy-systems, but also beyond. For example, it currently leads the consortium that produces the official GHG emission projections for Germany, which are required by Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetz (KSG).

To NFDI4Energy, the Öko-Institut contributes expertise for developing open research data infrastructures. Based on its previous involvement with developing the Open Energy Platform, within NFDI4Energy it focuses on making it fitter for purpose.

Öko-Institut also contributes insights regarding the requirements that contract research has with respect to publishing Open Data, and what funders may expect to find on research data infrastructures so they can inform themselves and policy in a targeted manner based on research. Öko-Institut can be seen as a bridge between the ‘worlds’ of contract research and grant research.

Task Areas

Öko-Institut is involved in Task Area 8. They work in Measure 1.4, in which they develop the Open Energy Platform to be fitter for purpose with respect to requirements from the NFDI community.

Involvement

The Öko-Institut e. V. is not part of any other NFDI consortia.

Reiner Lemoine Institut (RLI)

The Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) is an independent, non-profit research institution focused on creating a future powered by 100% renewable energy. RLI’s expertise lies in energy transformation, open science, and research data management (RDM). They specialize in areas like power grids, energy system analysis, sector coupling, and data management. RLI is the main developer of the Open Energy Family and the Open Energy Platform (OEP), supporting collaborative efforts in energy system modeling and data sharing.

Task Areas

RLI contributes to NFDI4Energy in the following task areas:

• Task Area 1: Building and serving the energy research community, defining personas (users, developers, researchers), platform development, and creating best practices and tutorials.
• Task Area 4: Energy system research ontology, including core development of the Open Energy Ontology (OEKG) and OEMetadata Standard as well as the creation of scenario factsheets and scenario comparisons.

Involvement

RLI is not part of any other NFDI consortia besides NFDI4Energy.