Newsletter | November 2023

   

   

Nearly All of Ontario’s 5.4 Million Electricity Customers and Over 3.5 Million Natural Gas Customers Now Empowered with Easy, Digital Access to their Energy Consumption Data, Helping them to Manage Energy Usage and Reduce Costs

   

The Green Button Alliance announced it has tested and Certified 55 utilities’ platforms across Ontario as compliant with the North American Energy Standards Board’s (NAESB) Retail Energy Quadrant Book 21 (REQ.21) Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI) standard, version 3.3; commonly known as the Green Button standard. The utilities are covered by Ontario’s Energy Data Regulation 633/21, which requires utilities provincewide to implement Green Button Connect My Data® (CMD) and Green Button Download My Data® (DMD) sharing methods, as well as have them Certified by the Green Button Alliance by November 1, 2023. Certification to industry standards is an essential first step in laying the groundwork for a thriving, interoperable-solutions marketplace.

   

Ontario, through the new utility-provided Green Button Certified℠ platforms, now empowers nearly 100% of the province’s 5.4 million residential and business electricity customers and over 3.5 million natural gas customers with easy, digital access to their billing and energy-consumption data. The Certified utility solutions ensure the key benefits of the Green Button standard, including ensuring customer data privacy, interoperability, and scalability of solutions. The new platforms mark the broadening North American availability of Green Button Certified implementations that maximize AMI infrastructure and support utility grid modernization strategies. 

“Ontario is known for its industry-leading energy vision and today, utilities across the province are providing Green Button Certified platforms to enable more energy-solutions choices for our customers,” said Syed Mir, Chairman, Green Button Alliance and VP Corporate Services & CIO, London Hydro. “Other provinces and states can look to Ontario as an example of how to support utilities in delivering data-driven energy-management programs and services that reduce energy usage costs, streamline building-consumption reporting, and set the stage for DER and EV charging visibility.” 

   

The Green Button Certified implementations enable Ontario’s utilities to provide their customers with new, standards-based, data-enabled platforms, apps, and services that allow customers to digitally access their utility data and securely share their data with third-party providers of services. Green Button implementations enable customers to manage their energy consumption, reduce costs, and take advantage of new, utility-provided, Green Button data-enabled services, such as Demand Response (DR) and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). Green Button Connect My Data platforms also enable speedier deployments of solar, EV charging, and electric heat pumps, with interval measurements of usage patterns that further support energy efficiency, reduced costs, and decarbonization. 

“The Green Button Alliance’s certification of 55 of Ontario’s utilities covered by the Energy Data regulation is due to the hands-on approach taken by regulators, utilities, and solution providers who envisioned Green Button standards-compliant solutions within a mandated timeframe; which was supported by close stakeholder collaboration in workgroup meetings,” said Jeremy J. Roberts, Executive Director, Green Button Alliance. “We commend Ontario’s energy-policy leadership and GBA Member companies, whose expertise was instrumental in implementing standards-based, Certifiable Green Button data-access and -sharing solutions that enhance utilities’ digital customer-engagement strategies and address their needs for billing and consumption data."

Including the recently Certified Ontario utility implementations, the GBA has now tested and certified over 130 Green Button utility platforms in the U.S. and Canada as compliant with the Green Button standard; demonstrating the growing number of utilities now implementing and adhering to the industry’s Green Button standard. Utility data-access platforms Certified as adhering to the Green Button standard provide a consistent data format and methods of secure access—opening the market for Green Button third-party solution providers and enabling speedier integration of those solutions with utility Green Button Connect My Data implementations.

Utilities interested in providing certifiable Green Button solutions should first purchase the standard from NAESB. Learn more about the GBA's testing and certification program.

   

The Green Button Alliance is now accepting nominations from its Participating Member companies to fill two seats on its 2024 Board of Directors that are reserved each year for representatives from Participating Member companies.

   

Participating Member companies have recieved board representative nomination information via email and can nominate a candidate from their own company, or other GBA Participating Member companies, to run in GBA's 2024 Board of Directors election. All employees of eligible companies can be nominated to run for the two seats:

   

Nominations will close on November 13, 2023 with the election beginning November 15, 2023. Election results will be announced at the Green Button Alliance's Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held online on Thursday, December 7, 2023. The two new Directors will commence their positions on the Green Button Alliance's Board of Directors on January 1, 2024.

   

   

   

For a full listing of GBA meetings and events, please see GBA's Calendar page.