Extracting Power Infrastructure¶

Once you have downloaded the OSM PBF files, the extraction script reads them and produces GeoJSON files containing only power infrastructure features.

Running the extraction¶

python extract_osm_region.py <Continent> <Country> [Region] [Subregion]

Examples:

# Federal state
python extract_osm_region.py Europe Germany Bayern

# Administrative district
python extract_osm_region.py Europe Germany Bayern Niederbayern

# Country level (uses the full country PBF)
python extract_osm_region.py Europe Spain

# Other continents
python extract_osm_region.py South_America Chile Metropolitana

The Continent, Country, Region, and Subregion arguments must match the folder names created by create_folder_structure.py (case-sensitive, underscores instead of spaces).

Output files¶

For each region the script produces four GeoJSON files in public/data/osm_extracts/<path>/:

File	OSM tags	Description
`*_substations.geojson`	`power=substation`, `power=station`	Transformer stations with voltage metadata
`*_power_plants.geojson`	`power=plant`	Generation facilities with type and capacity
`*_power_lines.geojson`	`power=line`, `power=cable`	HV/MV transmission and distribution lines
`*_boundaries.geojson`	`boundary=administrative`	Country, state, district, and commune polygons

Extracted properties¶

Substations¶

Property	Description
`name`	OSM name tag
`voltage`	Voltage in kV (parsed from `voltage` tag)
`operator`	Grid operator if tagged
`osm_id`	OSM way or relation ID

Power plants¶

Property	Description
`name`	Plant name
`plant:source`	Energy source (`solar`, `wind`, `hydro`, `gas`, etc.)
`generator:output:electricity`	Installed capacity in MW (if tagged)
`operator`

Power lines¶

Property	Description
`name`	Line name or identifier
`voltage`	Operating voltage in kV
`cables`	Number of cables
`frequency`	AC frequency (blank = DC)

Updating a region¶

To re-extract after downloading a newer PBF file:

python update_database_for_region.py Europe Germany Bayern

This re-runs the extraction and, if PostGIS is configured, re-imports the updated GeoJSON files into the database.

Processing time¶

Extraction time scales with the PBF file size. As a rough guide:

Area	Extraction time
Small district (~80 MB)	< 1 minute
German federal state (~600 MB)	2–5 minutes
Full country (~4 GB)	15–30 minutes