The Green Button Alliance (GBA) announced the results of its first annual board of directors election. Cengizhan Yenerim, Director, Demand Risk Management, Think Energy (ENGIE Resources) was elected to serve in a two-year seat and Elena Lucas, CEO of UtilityAPI will serve in a one-year seat.  Yenerim and Lucas join the Green Button Alliance’s visionary board in guiding the Alliance in its mission to accelerate the delivery of standardized Green Button technologies to the market that empower residential and commercial customers around the world to access and share their energy and water usage data to manage resource consumption. 

The GBA fosters the development, compliance, and wide-spread adoption of the Green Button electricity, natural gas, and water data-sharing standard. 

Read the press release here.

The Green Button Alliance hosted a webinar, "Green Button 101", on 13 October 2016 to educate the industry and consumers on the many powerful capabilities of the Green Button data-access standard, as well as communicate real-world benefits from a leading U.S. utility and application-provider perspective.  GBA general manager Jeremy J. Roberts, Paul Monette of founding member Southern California Edison (SCE) and Elena Lucas of member UtilityAPI presented. The webinar featured a lively Q&A session enabling the presenters to answer questions from  attendees. In case you missed it, access the Q&A here.

The first White House Open Data Innovation Summit with Solutions Showcase was held in conjunction with the Data Foundation's 4th annual open data policy conference, Data Transparency 2016 on 28 September 2016 in Washington D.C. The event showcased innovations and achievements in U.S. open data. One of the many highlights included a U.S. CTO panel consisting of current U.S. CTO Megan Smith and former U.S. CTOs Aneesh Chopra and Todd Park. Chopra noted the U.S. "My Data" movement and the Green Button initiative within his talk. Smith referenced Green Button in her closing remarks later in the event. The Green Button Alliance was selected to both speak and exhibit at the event. GBA chairman, Syed Mir, CIO of London Hydro, addressed the Green Button Alliance's vision, goals, and Green Button progress and innovation, implementations and customer successes. 

GBA general manager, Jeremy J. Roberts, highlighted member Green Button achievements in the U.S. and globally and educated attendees on Green Button functionality and broad benefits. The Solutions Showcase at the Summit was well-attended and great opportunity to interface with government, cross-sector industry and technology representatives working to advance Open Data. Green Button Alliance board members David A. Wollman of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Christopher J. Irwin of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) were in attendance along with GBA staff at the Showcase. Syed Mir had the opportunity to discuss Green Button with U.S. CTO Megan Smith at the Summit. The GBA is continuing to educate stakeholders on the benefits enabled by consumer access to Green Button energy and water usage data, including the assurance of customer privacy and data security.

Chai Energy's mobile app for iOS collects Green Button energy usage data directly from a customer's utility and informs them of how much electricity they're using, how much it'll cost, and provides a full range of personalized energy conservation and efficiency tips. Chai Energy recently announced the Chai Solar feature that analyzes a customer's energy usage and local weather patterns to determine if installing solar panels will save customers additional money. Chai users can also upgrade to the Chai Energy Pro, an energy gateway that collects real-time utility data from a user's smart meter. Chai recently opened a public pilot program in California.

UtilityAPI, a enterprise software company that provides solar, storage, and energy management professionals with simple access to energy usage data, has adopted the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) DataGuard Energy Data Privacy Program. DataGuard, a voluntary code of conduct, establishes a framework for common practices that protect the access, use, and sharing of customer data; and provides residential and commercial consumers with assurance their energy data are being protected and treated responsibly. UtilityAPI and the Green Button Alliance are proud supporters of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center's (MassCEC) 5th Annual Boston Cleanweb Hackathon to be held April 1-3, 2016.

WattzOn, based in Mountain View, California, provides utility data connections, energy analytics, and web and mobile tools that enable people and communities across the U.S.─in all 50 states─to save energy and money. WattzOn's cloud-based brand-customizable platform provides automated access to utility data for more than 200 electric and gas utilities nationwide, helping communities to serve their residents and business partners to provide a single user experience in multiple locations. WattzOn is an early adopter of the Department of Energy's (DOE) DataGuard Energy Data Privacy Protection Program.

Chai Energy launched its mobile app that shows customers their energy use in real-time, includes a new Demand Response (DR) feature that notifies users of a DR event in their area, provides customized energy-saving tips, and estimates how much users will save on their bill and receive in DR incentives--it can even tell if solar energy is an option for them! Chai Energy's mobile app is now available in SCE, SDG&E and PG&E service territories.

Energyworx offers a big-data aggregation and analytics cloud-software service for the energy and utilities industry. I t's powerful platform which supports open standards including Green Button, was stress tested on the Google Cloud Platform, and was proven to scale to handle millions of meters and billions of values! Register now to attend Energyworx' Webinar on Sept. 30th: "Enabling the Energy Evolution, Changing the Way the Energy Sector Understands Data Through Real Time Insights".

In August, Alliance founding member London Hydro formalized its partnership with MaRS Advanced Energy Centre (AEC)—one of the newest members of GBA—to help advance the Green Button platform with utilities and customers.

UtilityAPI, a winner of DOE's SunShot Catalyst Demo Day, is a software service provider that downloads bill and interval data for solar and energy efficiency companies, and also offers a secure hosting service for utilities. UtilityAPI's hosted service provides compatibility with various Green Button utility interface implementations and it is currently available at PG&E and SDG&E.