# Getting Started

On this page you can find important information about the project.

## About

This project was designed to provide public access to monthly data submitted to the [Power Cost Equalization (PCE) Program](https://www.akenergyauthority.org/What-We-Do/Power-Cost-Equalization). The PCE data is collected on a monthly basis and includes important information on a community's generation, costs, sales, and prices (both with and without PCE rate assistance). Having this data available at the monthly level enables researchers to conduct more nuanced analysis, and to look at within-year trends.

This website includes information about the project, the data cleaning, and links to downloading the data. This website also includes the documentation on the data pipeline used to conduct the data cleaning.

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If you are looking for more information on the Power Cost Equalization Program, please visit the [Alaska Energy Authority Website](https://www.akenergyauthority.org/What-We-Do/Power-Cost-Equalization). There you will find resources on the history of the program, annualized statistics, and program guides.
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## Data Quality

The data we receive from the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) are the original entries for each utility/community in each month. This means that the data includes entry errors. We present the data in two forms:

1. **Uncleaned**: This is the original data as received, but the column names have been standardized and calendar dates have been added (the original data comes with fiscal dates).
2. **Cleaned**: This is the result of data processing. We make efforts to remove obviously erroneous or impossible data. For more information on the data cleaning process, please visit the [Data Cleaning](data_cleaning) page.

## Data Contents

The data presented here is primarily the output of filling out the [AEA's PCE Utility Monthly Report](https://pce.akenergyauthority.org/Documents/Sample%20UMR%20&%20Legend.pdf). For more information on the data included in each dataset, please visit the Data Dictionary page.


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