What’s new in Green Button Solutions
Green Button: ESPI Version 4.0
What’s in store for Green Button technologies as utilities adopt NAESB REQ.21 ESPI version 4.0?
This is a question we’ve been asked frequently since the release of version 4.0 on December 13th, 2023. Version 4.0 of the NAESB REQ.21 ESPI—the core of the Green Button standards—doesn’t add features that are insurmountable for Utilities’ developers nor for Third Party companies providing services to the Customers. There are only two major changes between version 3.3 and version 4.0:
- increased security and
- the ability to obtain bill images.
Increased Security
Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3 is now widely deployed across the Internet; with server and browser support readily available. ESPI version 4.0 deprecates the use of TLS versions lower than 1.3, ensuring that transmission of data between Utilities and Third Parties is at the highest available level to-date.
Many Green Button Certified CMD℠ Utility platforms already support TLS 1.3, so by discontinuing support for TLS 1.2, TLS 1.1, and anything less, they can already meet the new level of security.
Bill Images
Security curbs are an important enhancement, to be sure, but more-exciting is the second feature:
the bill-image retrieval.
Currently, data can be downloaded by Customers through the Utility portal and/or connected to Third Party service providers of their choosing, depending on what methods a Utility supports for Green Button data sharing. To-date, however, there hasn’t been a way to download a PDF bill using application programming interface (API) calls. Instead, Customers have had to rely on downloading the PDF bill and then providing it to their service provider; or worse, allowing the service provider to log into the Utility portal with their private credentials to download the PDF bills for them—thus creating potential security issues by the sharing of those user credentials. There are great residential use cases for this but building owners and operators have a long-standing need of collecting bills for a variety of purposes and sharing those with service providers.
The latest version of ESPI allows the Connect My Data (CMD) method to be used to share PDF bills (or other types of bill images) with the service provider of their choosing—without having to share usernames and passwords or other login credentials.
Third-Party service providers can begin implementing this ability, (even before it is available within the various Utility platforms) using API calls similar to what they use today for obtaining Green Button usage data with the CMD method.
Utilities looking to provide PDF bills through CMD—and reduce security risk and burden on their user interfaces—can simply implement the PDF handling with the API calls of the new version 4.0 ESPI standard.
Aside from Utilities benefiting from reducing risk and server resources, benefits of scaling and speed can be gained by property-management software companies and those that handle billing for commercial entities: allowing them to obtain the bills just as they can now obtain the usage data: directly.
Green Button Directory Services
So, what is next to help find all these implementations?
The Green Button Alliance and the open, automated data exchange (OpenADE) community at large—the open, free, membership-less group of technically minded individuals that drive the standard forward; led by GBA staff—are continually working to enhance Green Button functionality and value for all parties involved. To assist in easily finding Green Button data-enabled solutions, the GBA is readying its Green Button Directory Services℠—a new, searchable database of Utilities, Third Parties, and Platform Vendors to those Utilities.
By bringing all of these into one, free resource, we aim to grow Green Button market opportunities and solutions through the connecting of the Utilities, Third Parties, and Vendors; while also providing a single, go-to resource for Customers to find what they need from Third Parties and find direct links to the right pages on their Utility’s website.
This new Green Button Directory℠ will be open to GBA Members to provide content and feedback before the end of May. We plan to open it to the public—without membership, logins, or any such gate keeping—by the end of September. Contact us to be a part of the Directory.
An Invitation
We hope you’ll consider implementing the new, more-secure -and- billing-image -friendly version of the standard and we also welcome you to participate in the GBA’s free Green Button Directory.
We look forward to continuing to enhance Green Button data-access and -sharing features for you for years to come; and we welcome you to be a part of that journey.
- Jeremy J. Roberts, General Manager & Executive Director
Green Button Alliance
- NAESB REQ.21 ESPI v4.0 — learn more and obtain the latest standard
- GBA Membership Information — to learn how to be a part of the community
- OpenADE Task Force information — for enhancements to all things Green Button technical
- Green Button Directory Services — to be a part of the directory or simply to use it