06 April: “ENGIE and Georgetown University Launch Partnership to Promote Energy Sustainability,” ENGIE North America press release.

02 April: “What Biden's Infrastructure Plan Means for the US Energy Sector,” Power Engineering International.

26 March: “Increasing Numbers of Utility Customers Care About the Climate and Want Action, New Report Shows,” POWERGRID International. Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) report featured.

08 March: “Digital Platform Regulations for Electric Utilities: Part 1,” by Michael Murray, T&D World. Green Button Connect My Data.

08 March: “Jigar Shah's Plan to Manage DOE's $40B Loan Program,” Greentech Media.

03 March: “Energy Hedging: A New Way to Make Demand Response Pay in California?” Greentech Media. OhmConnect featured.

02 March: “E & C Leaders Introduce the CLEAN Future Act, Comprehensive Legislation to Combat the Climate Crisis,” U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce press release.

10 February: “ClearTrace Builds a Truly Connected Energy World Through Technology That Empowers Trust, Transparency and Security,” SuperbCrew. ClearTrace featured.

03 February: “The 50 States of Grid Modernization: 2020 Review and Q4 2020 Quarterly Report,” by NC Clean Energy Technology Center.

31 January: “Energy Data Management as a Business Strategy Best Practice,” Sustainability, Unitil’s January 2021 Newsletter. Green Button Download My Data featured.

11 January: “Energyworx Announces Maher Chebbo as Chairman of Customer Advisory Board,” Energyworx press release.

12 October, 2020: “ZOME's Consortium DOE Project Team Member Wins the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics,” ZOME press release.

Did You Know?

The Green Button Standard Ensures Customer Privacy & Secure Transmission of Energy Data

The Green Button standard is designed to enable utility customers to easily access and securely share their electricity, natural gas, and water-usage information in a consistent format. The standard also ensures the energy-usage information data stream does not contain any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and must be transmitted using a secure-transmission process thus paving the way for utilities to meet requirements for customer privacy set forth in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the European Union as well as the principles outlined in the U.S. Department of Energy's voluntary DataGuard Energy Data Privacy Program.

• The Green Button standard’s Retail Customer schema function requires utilities to transmit PII in a separate, secured transmission apart from the data stream used to transmit a customer’s energy-usage information and it requires the receiving application to logically connect the two, separate data streams.
• The Retail Customer data stream transmission also must be authorized by the utility’s customer.
• Green Button’s Retail Customer schema enables utilities to protect customers’ PII while allowing them to meet regulators’ and third party non-energy information requirements.

The Advanced Energy Centre (AEC) at MaRS Discovery District, this week announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mexican State of Jalisco Energy Agency. The AEC helps foster the adoption of innovative energy technologies in Canada and leverages those successes and experiences into international markets. The MOU commits to encouraging closer economic ties and strengthening beneficial relations between the regions, by working together to accelerate energy innovation in each respective jurisdiction. Using the AEC's systems change methodologies, the parties will collaboratively define opportunities and challenges facing the energy system and build a comprehensive strategy for achieving Jalisco's energy vision. The AEC will also provide the Energy Agency with curated access to innovative energy technologies, which can help the state achieve its vision. Read more here. 

Enel, this week launched its Enel Innovation Hub in partnership with the University of California Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute. The Hub, whose headquarters are located at the CITRIS Foundry Accelerator at UC Berkeley, is part of the international start-up network within the Enel Group that will select the best start-ups with which to develop joint business projects.

Commonwealth Edison (ComEd)—a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, a Green Button Alliance sponsor member—recently announced the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has approved a proposal by ComEd that allows companies and researchers access to anonymous energy usage data in order to enable the development of new products and services that will add value to Illinois energy customers. The new program will open access to unidentified interval energy usage data for all ZIP Codes where smart meters have been deployed by ComEd. ComEd's Anonymous Data offering builds upon the Green Button Initiative.

On 21 July, Energyworx, providers of SaaS-based energy data management and energy intelligence solutions that help utility and energy companies navigate and monetize the energy transition, announced a €1 million Series A funding round led by venture capital firm henQ. Energyworx will use the new funding to scale its U.S. and European operations, including the opening of a new office in San Francisco. Energyworx has appointed Marcel E. Smit as CEO. Founder, Edwin Poot, has been named Chief Visionary Officer and will focus on the company’s long-term product strategy. In June, Energyworx was coined a “Rock Star” of GridEdge World Forum 2016 held in San Jose, California; read the company’s re-cap here and see Edwin Poot’s interview live from the event [YouTube] as he explains Energyworx’ role in the energy transition and how the company helps customers monetize their data.

In August, Chai Energy and Energy Upgrade California® teamed up to provide California residents with the tools and information they need to save energy and money on their utility bills. The two companies are inviting California utility customers to sign up for Chai Energy's popular Green Button mobile app. Through the offer, the first 1,000 qualified registrants will receive a Chai Energy Pro for free. Chai Energy Pro is a smart energy gateway that connects to the home's network and collects the customer’s energy usage data in real-time (every 7 seconds) from their smart meter. Customers can then use the Chai mobile app to tag individual appliances in their homes to see energy usage of specific appliances, receive customized notifications, and be informed of any utility rebates for replacing existing inefficient appliances—all on their mobile phone. See how the Chai Pro and Chai Energy mobile app work together on this new video [Vimeo].

Solar Analytics, based in Oakland, California (with headquarters in Redfern, Sydney, Australia), are innovators of intelligent solar-monitoring software that enables users to achieve maximum performance and value from their solar energy systems. Solar Analytics' Solar Smart Monitor is a unique solution for solar owners, as it monitors real-time solar production (live 5-second data) against calculated expected performance based on local weather conditions, pulls in real-time energy consumption data, and provides recommended actions when the PV system is under-performing. For solar installers and energy retailers, the Solar Smart Monitor provides opportunity to generate additional sales with accurate battery recommendations for customers, in-built refer-a-friend and a pre-solar quote kit. In Australia, Solar Analytics partners with AGL─one of Australia's leading integrated energy companies─and is actively seeking an energy partner in the U.S.

Solar Analytics is exhibiting at the Seventh Annual Clean Energy Ministerial in the Start-ups and Solutions Showcase, June 1-2, in San Francisco, California.

How will your organization react to energy sector transformation? MaRS Discovery District's Advanced Energy Centre offers a new kind of collaborative workshop in the form of a room-sized business strategy board game: Newtonian Shift provides energy players with the opportunity to experience accelerated, multi-year transformation of the energy sector in less than a day. Participants will uncover hidden biases, gain an understanding of the perspectives of other energy sector stakeholders, learn the importance of collaboration and begin testing new approaches to navigate change. Energy players in Europe and North America, including over 23 Ontario utilities, have successfully applied this experience to their own strategy development, to prepare for a transformed electricity sector.

Last month, Green Button Alliance founding member PG&E made its Share My Data 2.0 available to its customers. Share My Data 2.0 is a Green Button Connect My Data implementation that enables PG&E customers to easily share their electric and gas usage and billing data with authorized third party vendors via an API on an on-going basis. Share My Data empowers customers by raising awareness of energy usage and encourages companies to develop new, innovative customer-focused applications. To find out more, please visit www.pge.com/ShareMyData or email [email protected].

The Green Button Alliance is proud to welcome the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) as an Affiliate Member. The SGCC is a nonprofit organization that works to learn the wants and needs of energy consumers in the United States, encourage the collaborative sharing of best practices in consumer engagement among industry stakeholders, and educate the public about the benefits of the smart grid. The Green Button Alliance has also joined the SGCC as an Affiliate Member. As a member of the SGCC, the Green Button Alliance will work to further educate smart-grid consumers about the full capabilities and benefits of Green Button energy usage data.

Green Button Alliance member Energyworx has been recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Meter Data Management for the second year in a row. Energyworx provides a new way of offering MDM—a pure-play and disruptive, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service for the energy and utility sector. Energyworx uses grid data from meters and other sources to power new use cases such as the Data Hub, which centralizes access to grid and meter data, enabling third parties to connect and offer new services to utility customers.

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.

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.

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).

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!

UtilityAPI is an enterprise software company that provides solar, storage and energy management professionals with simple access to energy usage data. 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.