"Access to Data: Bridging the Electricity Grid Into the Information Age" by Coley Girouard, Advanced Energy Economy (AEE).  Green Button standard noted as leading standard for utility data exchange.

Washington D.C. council members introduced the "Distributed Energy Resources Act of 2018" to modernize the District of Columbia's energy grid.  The new DER Authority would house real-time energy use data in a central location and create a marketplace for D.C. businesses and residents to contribute renewable energy toward the District's energy supply.

Energy Consumers Australia's "Consumer Access to Energy Data" response to government consultations on implementing Australia's Consumer Data Right for energy; Green Button Connect My Data noted.

"Opinion: Giving Ohio Electric Consumers More Control Over Their Usage Benefits the Industry and the Environment" by J.D. Burrows, ENGIE Resources.

An article about "How the Green Button Initiative Could Open Up a World of Innovation" by the Association of Power Producers of Ontario (APPrO).

Smart Meter Texas (SMT) settlement calls for streamlined customer authorization process and Green Button Connect My Data (CMD) API. Read more in the 06 February article: "Texas Takes a Big Step in Improving Access to Smart Meter Data" by Jeff St. John, Greentech Media.

"Consumer Platform of the Future" report, by Green Button Alliance member Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), found that about half of U.S. energy consumers would probably or definitely use the "Platform," which was defined as an online energy resource that would combine energy usage data, user preference settings, real-time energy data, energy programs and offers, and use this information to help the user understand and manage home energy use.

Green Button Alliance member Energy Technology Savings (ETS) featured in article: "ETS Using Technology to Slash Multifamily Energy Costs" by Tom Bergeron, ROI-NJ.

GBA Members spoke at the SECC’s 2018 Consumer Symposium (The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative is a GBA Affiliate Member organization).  Members of the Green Button Alliance, including the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), participated on the “Enabling Consumers with Access, Choice and Control of their Energy Data” panel, moderated by Jeremy J. Roberts, General Manager, GBA at the Consumer Symposium: “Transforming the Customer Relationship.”

The Symposium was co-located with DistribuTECH and took-place at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. 

GBA's 2018 Annual Members Meeting & Breakfast

The GBA's Annual Members Meeting & Breakfast will be held on 24 January at the historic Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas to coincide with DistribuTECH 2018. The Members Meeting & Breakfast will be sponsored by board member / Participating Member company Think Energy. Learn how far the Green Button Alliance has come in three years and what's next for standards-based Green Button energy usage data, implementations and applications internationally. Members & interested non-members welcome, RSVP here.

GBA at DistribuTECH 2018

The Green Button Alliance is sponsoring a member-oriented booth at DistribuTECH 2018, 23-25 January in San Antonio, Texas. The GBA booth (#3247) is a 10x20 space located in the main exhibition hall of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. If your company is interested in sponsorship opportunities and participating in the booth, please contact Jeremy J. Roberts, General Manager, Green Button Alliance at [email protected] for more details.

GBA member Silver Spring Networks announced it will combine with Itron to accelerate smart grid and smart city innovation and growth. See the announcement here.

GBA member the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative announced at its recent Annual Members Meeting and Fall Workshop that it has changed its name to the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) to reflect its expanded mission. Read more here. 

GBA member Energy Toolbase launched a powerful software update that enables developers to model, optimize, and propose the economics of any type of behind-the-meter energy storage project providing benefits to both residential and commercial project developers. Learn more here. GBA members Energy Toolbase and UtilityAPI will also present at the 4th Annual DR & DER World Forum on 11-12 October in Costa Mesa, California.

Advocacy group, Mission:data announced that utility Xcel Energy will Bring Smart Meters and Green Button Connect My Data to Colorado.

The Green Button standard is featured in the article “How Focused Data Use Analysis Leads to Energy Efficiency” by Klaar De Schepper in this June 2017’s issue of Buildings Operating Management magazine.

Green Button Alliance member the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative’s (SGCC) consumer education site features a page dedicated to educating consumers about their Green Button data.

This week, the CS Week 2017 conference is being held May 22-26 at the Fort Worth Convention Center in Texas.  The Green Button Alliance is pleased to note that several member companies were recognized with the prestigious “2017 CS Week Expanding Excellence” awards at the event.  The awards were presented to the winners and finalists on Wednesday, May 24th, during the opening general session of CS Week.

Exelon Corporation was named as a winner of the “Innovation in Digital Customer Engagement” award.

Baltimore Gas & Electric, an Exelon company, received a “Best Analytics Project” award with Pacific Gas & Electric receiving the runner-up in that category and level.

London Hydro (Ontario) won a “Best Mobility Implementation” award for their Interval Data Centre (IDC) innovation, which utilizes cloud-based infrastructure to provide Green Button energy-usage data via a powerful, mobile management application.  For more information about the Green Button solution, view the London Hydro video.

The Green Button Alliance congratulates its member companies for their outstanding achievements and industry recognition in receiving these awards!

Southern California Edison (SCE) has delivered electricity to Southern and Central California for more than 125 years and is one of the nation's largest utilities. SCE was one of the first utilities in the U.S. to make Green Button data available with the launch of its Green Button program in 2013. SCE's Green Button Download My Data offering enables its customers to securely download their own interval usage data directly to their computer from SCE's website. In 2015, SCE launched its Green Button Connect My Data program which gives customers the ability to automate the secure transfer of their own energy usage data to authorized third-parties, based on opt-in customer consent and control. In 2016, SCE enhanced its Connect My Data offering to include Billing, Meter, and Program Participation related data. To date, SCE has partnered with 13 third parties with approximately 11 additional vendors in process of testing. SCE's registered third-party vendors include demand-response providers, energy-management companies, solar companies, and others. SCE is proud to be a founding member of the Green Button Alliance and continues to promote its Green Button program among its customers and their designated business agents.

Top-performing electricity utilities from across Ontario, Canada, were honored at the industry's premier Awards Gala, hosted by the Electricity Distributors Association (EDA), on 27 March 2017. London Hydro, along with Festival Hydro and Whitby Hydro, received the Customer Service Excellence award for collaborating to enhance the utilities' online customer-engagement solutions including the launch of their Green Button platforms. The utilities successfully reduced their costs while providing customers with more service options online. London Hydro was also recognized with the Conservation Leadership Award at the event.

The Green Button Alliance was a supporter of the 2nd Annual Grid Modernization Forum held on 3-5 April 2017 in Chicago. Alliance members Mimi Zhang of Silver Spring Networks and Kevin Bricknell of Exelon Corporation's Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) subsidiary, participated in the event. Mimi Zhang joined speakers from DataCapable, Alliant Energy, and Open Energy Solutions on the Session 3 panel: "IOT and Big Data Analytics for New Business Models and Operational Excellence." The value of interoperability, collaboration, and the future of the smart grid was also discussed. Kevin Bricknell presented during Session 10: "Better Programs, Better Performance, with Customer and Grid Data Analytics" educating the audience about new and innovative smart grid programs and pilots that are helping to create a utility of the future. He highlighted new customer programs including Green Button Connect My Data, which ComEd is implementing to help its customers make informed decisions about managing their electricity consumption.

The Green Button Alliance was a promotional partner of the Energy Thought Summit (ETS17) held on 27-30 March 2017 in Austin, Texas. The event gathered many of the industry's top creative minds to design solutions to shape the energy transformation. GBA members Exelon, Energyworx, and the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) spoke at the event. A highlight of the event was ComEd CEO, Anne Pramaggiore's selection as the "2017 ETS Thought Leader of the Year" -- an award that honors an individual with an inventive, brave vision to inspire the global energy ecosystem. The GBA congratulates Anne Pramaggiore of ComEd on her award!  

Energyworx Founder and Chief Visionary Officer, Edwin Poot, spoke on the "Designing for Data" panel along with participants from Direct Energy and EDF Energy Services. Poot expertly addressed how the industry can get the most out of legacy systems and respond to data diversity challenges. Establishing a foundation of data quality is the key to success in advanced analytics and machine learning. SGCC's President and CEO, Patty Durand, moderated two panels at the event including "Customers-in-Charge -- Redefining the Utility-Customer Relationship" and "Ready for Action - How Utilities Can Drive Value for their Customer."

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.

The Green Button Alliance (GBA) announces that Ms. Mimi Zhang of Silver Spring Networks is filling the role of Vice Chair of the Green Button Alliance, a position left vacant when Mark Podosky, of Southern California Edison (SCE), retired from SCE. Ms. Zhang also heads the Alliance's member-led Global Marketing Committee.

Ms. Kim Cresencia of San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is filling the role of Secretary and Ms. Amy Kight Costadone of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is filling the role of Treasurer.  Previously, the roles of both Secretary and Treasurer were held by Ms. Zhang.

The 2017 Green Button Alliance Members Meeting was attended by leading utilities, large industry players, government agencies, app vendors, and affiliate organizations who gathered today at Sempra Energy® headquarters in San Diego — the parent company of GBA Sponsor and Founding member, San Diego Gas & Electric® — to discuss numerous Green Button achievements and to envision the path forward for the industry's energy data-access standard.

The GBA reviewed its successful expansion of the Green Button ecosystem in the short 24 months since it was founded.  The expert audience discussed current member developments, the growth of the GBA ecosystem, and ways to influence rapid adoption and implementation.

ProgrammableWeb, a widely known source of news and information for Internet-based application programming interfaces (APIs), just published a series in their API University section written by Dr. Martin J. Burns, with an introduction by Dr. David A. Wollman, both of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on Green Button and its use of OAuth: 

• Intro:  Understanding the Green Button API Initiative and Why It Matters
• Part 1:  Getting To Know The Primary Use Cases of The Green Button API initiative
• Part 2:  Understanding The Requirements and Standards Behind The Green Button API Initiative
• Part 3:  How Green Button Ingeniously Extended The OAuth Standard Without Forking It
• Part 4:  How The Green Button API Initiative Takes Advantage of OAuth's Scope Parameter
• Part 5:  How Green Button Made The "Pull-Only" OAuth Standard Support Push APIs Too
• Conclusion:  How Can Other API Implementations Benefit From Green Button's OAuth Inventions?

http://www.programmableweb.com/api-university/how-green-button-initiative-secured-its-apis-oauth

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) provides energy services to 15 million people and covers 70,000 square miles across Northern California. PG&E was one of the first utilities in the U.S. to make Green Button Data available to its customers with the launch of Green Button Download in December 2011 and launched its first publicly accessible API, Share My Data, based on Green Button Connect My Data, in March 2015. Today, PG&E's Share My Data platform is accessible to all customers to share their electric and gas interval usage and billing data in an ongoing manner to companies of their choice. PG&E's Share My Data platform now offers 50 registered third-party Green Button applications with approximately 55,000 Service Agreement ID's (SAIDs) being shared on a given day. The applications are being leveraged by a variety of companies, including: app developers to help customers understand and manage their energy usage; solar providers to help size PV installations and calculate more accurate financial forecasts, non-utility demand response providers to bid resources into the CAISO market; and with energy efficiency contractors and lenders to provide loans to customers which can be repaid via their PG&E bill.

MaRS Discovery District (MaRSDD), the Ontario Ministry of Energy, and utilities London Hydro and Hydro One have been working hand-in-hand to bring the benefits of the Green Button standard to electricity customers in Ontario, Canada, since November, 2012. Following the completion of successful Green Button pilot projects with London Hydro and Hydro One, over 3 million electricity consumers in Ontario now have access to their Green Button energy usage data. Ontario's 2016 Climate Change Action Plan now calls for expanding Green Button to enable data access from electricity, natural gas and water utilities from across the province. In this new article, "Unlocking Innovation Through Energy Data Standards," Ron Dizy, managing director of the Advanced Energy Centre (AEC) at MaRSDD, discusses the benefits of standardized energy data, key findings from the Ontario pilot projects, and from subsequent stakeholder consultations.  A  key finding was that commercial-sector customers, in particular, have a critical need for standardized access to consumption and billing data to meet requirements for reporting, internal benchmarking, and consumption reduction. Also in the article, the AEC has produced a new video, which well-describes the commercial sector drivers for Green Button. For key findings from the Ontario Green Button Connect My Data (CMD) Pilot Program, see the final report; and for Green Button CMD implementation lessons learned, see the industry adoption report, both included in the article.

Cielo Wigle Inc., based in Redmond, Washington, launched its plug and play smart home products for air conditioners/heat pumps, lighting and appliances at the Climate Expo, held 3-5 October in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Branded as Breez and Breezi (internal version), the Breezi smart controller enables split air-conditioner/heat pump manufacturers to easily convert their existing air-conditioner/heat pumps into smart appliances, allowing manufacturers to provide remote management and efficient control of cooling/heating to their customers. Cielo's Breez smart controller enables consumers to efficiently monitor and control their cooling/heating from anywhere. Cielo's new smart lights and smart outlets are branded as Lumi and Econi.  Econi enables energy measurement of all connected appliances and real-time billing information. All Cielo products are managed through a single Cielo smart home mobile app for iOS, Android and web-based applications that leverages predictive algorithms and machine learning to learn customer behavior to maximize convenience and energy efficiency. See Cielo's new video. Cielo will be launching its smart home technology for the U.S. market at the AHR Expo in Las Vegas on 30 January - 01 February 2017, in booth C1689. Follow Cielo on Twitter: @CieloWigle.

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.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has been a pioneer of the Green Button initiative since its inception and is a founding member of the Green Button Alliance.  SDG&E recently enhanced its Green Button Connect platform with added functionalities to offer greater convenience and higher analytical value for customers; these functionalities include cost data, "Quality of Reading" indicator in the Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI) file - whether the data is "revenue quality" - gas usage in the ESPI file and full OAuth integration to support real time APIs. SDG&E is committed to finding new and improved ways to serve our customers and to support the advancement of the Green Button ecosystem. Today, SDG&E customers have the ability to access their energy usage and select from nearly 29 applications, covering a wide variety of activities, to help them efficiently manage their energy consumption.

Solar Analytics, in the midst of appearing at several consecutive solar and energy events in both the U.S. and Australia─including at Solar Power International 2016 (SPI) in Las Vegas 12-15 September and All-Energy Australia in Melbourne 4-5 October─has also closed a $4.4 million Series A funding round from existing seed investor AGL Energy and private investors from the renewable energy sector. Solar Analytics is the innovator of intelligent Solar and Energy Smart Monitors and Service which gives users real-time data on their solar system's performance and home energy usage to help ensure efficient production and consumption. Solar Analytics now monitors over 10,000 energy systems in Australia, and having recently opened an office in San Francisco is rapidly growing their solar installer resellers in the USA. The Green Button Alliance congratulates Solar Analytics!

Energy Toolbase is an industry leading software platform for modeling and proposing the economics of solar and energy storage projects. Their software-as-a-service (SaaS) product is used by hundreds of leading distributed energy organizations across the U.S.  In September, Energy Toolbase released its latest version which enables users to model Net Energy Metering (NEM) 2.0 projects to analyze any scenario where kilowatt-hour solar exports are valued at less than the retail rate; create fully customized and interactive proposals; and leverage API integrations to interact with leading third party service providers including UtilityAPI. Via Energy Toolbase's integration with UtilityAPI, users can seamlessly import interval meter data from UtilityAPI, to precisely re-create a customer's utility bill and then optimize their solar or storage system size for dollar savings. To see a demo or sign-up for a free-trial, visit www.energytoolbase.com.

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 Green Button Alliance hosted a panel session, "Bridging the Utility Data Access Gap to Enable Operational Efficiencies, New Data-driven Energy Efficiency Programs and Residential and Commercial Customer Engagement," at the 3rd Annual Demand Response & DER World Forum on 10-11 October 2016 in Chicago. GBA board member Sasha Sud of the Advanced Energy Centre, GBA board member Amy Kight Costadone of PG&E, GBA member Martha Amram of WattzOn, and Steve Nguyen of BuildingIQ participated on the panel. The panel expertly addressed innovative technologies and services enabled by AMI and real-time energy usage data and Green Button trending data, the ability to securely share that information with authorized third-parties, as well as how energy usage data, analytics and auto DR, and the energy Internet of Things (IoT) can be leveraged to engage with residential and commercial customers.

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.