Those instrumental to the development of the Green Button standard often refer to the standard as an "overnight success, years in the making." Today, nearly four years after the White House announced the Green Button Initiative, the Green Button standard (NAESB ESPI REQ 21) has secured a strong foothold in the U.S. with leading utilities, including Green Button Alliance members PG&E, SDG&E and SCE, and vendors, offering energy customers easy, secure access to their own energy data.
In that time, adoption of the Green Button standard has quickly spread in North America. Working with the Canadian Ministry of Energy and MaRS Discovery District, London Hydro, based in Ontario, took a leadership position by becoming the first utility outside the U.S. to make Green Button energy data available to its residential and commercial customers -- paving the way for more than ten additional utilities in Canada to leverage Green Button energy data. Foreseeing both the business and customer value that an open, scalable 'energy data-as-a-service' solution could provide, London Hydro's CIO, Syed Mir, guided the company in 2014 to become the first utility in the industry to leverage the Green Button Connect My Data (CMD) method of the standard within a unified Google Cloud solution.
Launched in 2015 to unite and further the Green Button Initiative, the Green Button Alliance is already delivering upon it's vision for the global adoption of the Green Button standard to empower consumers and businesses worldwide with access to their energy usage data.
This past month, the Advanced Energy Centre (AEC) at MaRS Discovery District, which has actively been facilitating the adoption of the Green Button standard in Canada, joined the Alliance; strategically aligning the North American Green Button effort and further strengthening the collective expertise of the Alliance. In Europe, forward-thinking utilities and vendors are also looking at new customer-engagement technologies that provide additional ways to meet customer expectations and build customer relationships. The Enel Group, one of Europe's largest utilities, has joined the Green Button Alliance and recently announced it will make Green Button energy data available to selected customers in Italy. Together, members of the Green Button Alliance are driving the international expansion of the Green Button standard and are building the future of the energy industry, today. If your company isn't yet part of the transformation occurring in the energy sector, now is the time to consider leveraging the industry-leading Green Button standard.
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Chairman's View |
Welcome to the first GBA "Chairman's View" column.
I believe Green Button is a utility industry-changing initiative that will expand the energy ecosystem, especially 3rd party application development, to help residential and commercial customers manage their energy consumption.
The GBA board members have been actively participating on bi-weekly planning calls and in regular board meetings in the true spirit of collaboration. Like any new organization, we are working on governance, business processes, and strategic planning to become the single, definitive go-to-place for all things related to the Green Button ecosystem -- from development to certification to marketing to education.
In each newsletter, a GBA member will be highlighted in the "Member Spotlight" section. I want to thank PG&E for providing our inaugural 'spotlight' feature below. Also, stay tuned for enhancements to the GBA website which are coming soon and will help make member sign-up and access to Green Button documentation easier.
Feel free to provide us with feedback on our newsletters, including topics for future newsletters.
May the "Green Button Force" be with you!
Syed Mir, Chairman
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Welcome New Members! |
The Green Button Alliance is proud to welcome the Real Estate Standards Organization & Cielo WiGle as new GBA members:
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Member Spotlight | PG&E
Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) launched its first publicly accessible API in March 2015. This offering, Share My Data , is the next generation of PG&E's Green Button Connect My Data. Share My Data is a streamlined, safe way for PG&E customers to authorize third-party companies to access their energy usage information. PG&E customers no longer have to log in to download and share their energy usage files. Instead, once the service is set up and the customer authorizes access, the API does the work for them automatically. The service packages PG&E customer data, informs the authorized third-party businesses when the data is ready and securely sends it out. Share My Data provides the data following the Energy Service Provider Interface (ESPI) standard. For more information on PG&E's implementation, click here .
"We're seeing significant interest in the API, from third-party partners and PG&E customers," said Ryan Halsey, PG&E's Program Manager for the Share My Data API. "We're receiving great feedback from developers, which we're incorporating into our next release planned for the end of this year."
PG&E's planned improvements to the API include: data fields for billing and gas usage, which will add to the existing features on electrical usage; customer acc ount information; service locations and a streamlined registration process. "Location information was one of the most requested features from third parties, so we made sure to include those additional data fields to make the service more useful for non-residential and agricultural customers," said Halsey.
Making detailed energy usage information available in a standardized format encourages awareness of energy use, as well as innovation among third parties for new customer-focused applications. The hope is that energy app developers will imagine and create innovative, inspiring new ways for customers to relate to, manage and ultimately reduce their energy usage. PG&E is committed to making authorized, recurring, machine-to-machine, programmatic data access available to customers and their authorized third-party service providers.
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The Advanced Energy Centre (AEC) at MaRS Discovery District (MaRSDD) announced it has joined the Green Button Alliance and Sasha Sud, senior manager, Smart Grid & Energy Data, has been elected to GBA's Board of Directors. The AEC, MaRSDD, and the Ministry of Energy have actively been facilitating the adoption of Green Button standards in Ontario and have supported the creation of 41 customer-facing applications. The AEC will provide strategic insights to GBA as we work to expand the Green Button ecosystem internationally.
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Chai Energy provides an innovative new mobile app
that collects Green Button energy data and shows users how much energy they use, its costs, offers customized energy savings tips, and alerts users when additional opportunities for savings emerge--it even analyzes energy use and local weather to see if solar is an option. The Chai Energy app can be paired with a customized solar system from Solplicity to help users become even more energy-efficient, read more here .
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The Enel Group announced that it is the first European utility to join the Green Button Alliance, and Livio Gallo , Enel's Head of Global Infrastructure and Networks was elected to GBA's Board of Directors. Enel will make Green Button Download My Data and Green Button Connect My Data available to selected customers in Italy via Enel's Energy Management System (EMS). Read the news here. |
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Energyworx exhibited at European Utility Week 2015 this week from November 3-5 in Vienna. The company presented four of its most-popular use cases in the exhibition hall: Meter Data Management, Social Energy, The Solar Connected Home, and Energy Balancing for Smart Grids. See the full program here. Congratulations to the Energyworx team on a great event!
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UtilityAPI CEO Elena Lucas
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UtilityAPI is an enterprise software company that provides solar, storage and energy management professionals with simple access to energy usage data, see how it works here . UtilityAPI has also worked with utilities to implement Green Button standards and also recently announced compatibility with EnergyToolbase , a leading software platform that leverages Green Button energy data for third-party cost analysis of Solar PV and advanced energy storage projects. UtilityAPI CEO, Elena Lucas , recently presented at the White House about the company's experience with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) SunShot Catalyst program .
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Tech Corner |
The GBA administers a testing and certification program to make it easier for an energy provider to ensure it's Green Button implementation complies to the Green Button standard, while also assuring developers they can write a single application that can work across many utilities. If your company is in the process of developing a Green Button Download My Data (DMD) solution to provide Green Button energy data to your customers, or already has a DMD implementation, you can apply for Green Button DMD Certification here .
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| Chai CEO Cole Hershkowitz |
GBA board member Evan Birenbaum , co-founder and COO of Chai Energy, discussed Internet of Things and software including Chai's mobile app that leverages Green Button energy data at the SXSW Eco exhibition on October 5-7 in Austin, Texas. Both Evan, and Cole Hershkowitz, co-founder and CEO of Chai, spoke at the 2015 CleanTech Global Showcase, GloSho15 , October 21-22 in Los Angeles, where they joined local and international thought leaders. Cole covered the need for new energy efficient solutions, and noted benefits of Green Button energy data. |
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GBA board member, Sasha Sud, senior manager, Smart Grid & Energy Data at AEC MaRSDD, spoke at the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) event, held in Lecco, Italy, September 14-15. He addressed Green Button energy data within the role of communications as an enabler for the development of smart energy systems. He also recently spoke at the Canadian Bar Association's Annual Access to Information & Privacy Law Symposium held October 2-3, in Ottawa, where he described how Ontario's implementation of Green Button enabled smart meter data access while addressing existing privacy law and best practices. |
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GBA board members Christopher G. Irwin , U.S. DOE, and David A. Wollman , U.S. NIST, presented at the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel's (SGIP's) Annual Conference which took place this week, November 3-5, in New Orleans. Dr. Wollman moderated a panel entitled "Management of the Grid," in addition to co-hosting the Business and Policy Domain Experts Working Group (BNP DEWG) meeting , where attendees heard from state regulators and utilities on issues that impact the role of standards and how to best move forward integrating both sides. Topic areas included Green Button consumer energy usage and distributed energy resources. |
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| The Green Button Community Call #3 |
The Green Button Community Call #3 will be hosted by MaRSDD and will be held on November 19 at 3:00 pm EST (20:00 UTC). Register here to be notified of the call details/agenda. |
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The GBA will hold its next in-person board meeting November 30 & December 1 at GBA member Silver Spring Networks' headquarters in Redwood City, California. The GBA thanks board member, Secretary, and Treasurer, Mimi Zhang, senior product manager, Silver Spring Networks, and the company, for hosting the meeting.
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For a current listing of Green Button meetings, activities, and related industry events, please visit GBA's calendar . |
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