The White House hosted a summit on Scaling Renewable Energy and Storage with Smart Markets; 16 June 2016. The Summit brought-together regulators, utilities, municipalities, and energy companies that are leading efforts to promote smart electricity markets and grid integration of renewable energy and energy storage. On behalf of the Green Button Alliance, Jeremy J. Roberts, general manager, participated and informed attendees about Green Button energy data; the powerful functionality enabled by the standard; customer privacy; and the technology’s ability to remove barriers to enable utilities and energy service companies to offer critical access to energy-use data that will drive efficiency and facilitate a modern, data-driven grid.

On 15 June 2016, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Center for Open Data Enterprise co-hosted the fourth 2016 Open Data Roundtable: Open Data for Public-Private Collaboration. The Roundtable gathered participants from federal agencies, academia, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to formulate views and suggestions for greater public-private collaboration in the open-data ecosystem.

Jeremy J. Roberts, Green Button Alliance, general manager, presented an overview of the Alliance, discussed the success of the Green Button public-to-private transition, and educated attendees on the benefits derived by enabling consumers to have open and easy access to their own electricity-, natural gas-, and water-usage data.

(image: Center for Open Data Enterprise, used with permission)

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.

Cielo WiGle Inc., based in Redmond, Washington, launched its initial range of plug and play smart home products including smart air conditioner controllers for ductless ACs and smart outlets for home appliances that can be controlled and managed through the Cielo iOS, Android and web-based applications, at the Internet of Things Expo (IOTX) on March 29-31 in Dubai, UAE. Cielo's innovative mobile applications enable homeowners to access and control their homes through state of the art smart devices developed by Cielo. The company aims to launch its smart light adapter and $Meter application later this year. $Meter intends to augment utility-provided Green Button energy usage and billing data with real-time Cielo smart device consumption information and make it available in the Cielo Cloud. Homeowners will be able to easily access and control each watt of energy consumed by their smart home from anywhere in the world. Follow Cielo on Twitter: @CieloWiGle.

WattzOn provides web and mobile based solutions that enable people and communities across the U.S. to capture utility data and perform analytics allowing them to save energy and money. WattzOn's cloud-based platform provides automated access to electricity and gas utility data nationwide, serving solar companies, the connected home market, and community programs. Community program participants save $15 to $20 per month (vs. control groups) and based on this consistent track record, WattzOn now offers a guaranteed savings program. In the solar market, WattzOn's tools accelerate residential sales and increase sales closure rates. In the connected home market, WattzOn's tools enable the thermostat to become the entry point for energy savings throughout the house and for WattzOn's partners to offer personalized, engaging, and useful experiences for their customers.

Two Green Button Alliance members, Energyworx and Silver Spring Networks, were recently identified among a select group of vendors as key innovators in the Internet of Things (IoT) Utility market by a leading market research firm MarketsandMarkets (M&M). The report notes the global IoT Utility market has been estimated at USD 4.63 Billion in 2015 and is expected to grow at a yearly rate of 20% to reach USD 11.73 Billion by 2020. Don't miss Silver Spring Networks at Internet of Things World, May 10-12, in Santa Clara, California and see Energyworx at Grid Edge World Forum, June 21-23 in San Jose, California.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), in partnership with Greentown Labs, hosted the 5th Annual Boston Cleanweb Hackathon from April 1-3, 2016. The two-day technology challenge invited participants to compete to create user-friendly web and mobile applications designed to help consumers and businesses use energy and natural resources more efficiently. Cash and prizes were awarded to the winners.

The Green Button Alliance and member UtilityAPI were supporters of the event. UtilityAPI was a data sponsor for the event and was on-site to answer questions. The GBA and UtilityAPI congratulate the hackathon’s 80 participants for creating 11 energy efficiency applications in just 30 hours. EnergyBee, the hackathon’s first place winner, created an app that enables consumers to set and track energy use goals and spending, as well as compete against friends to save energy. EnergyBee used data provided by UtilityAPI.

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.