Now that it’s 2025, how should we improve permissioned access to energy data? What should policymakers focus on?
“Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.”
That was my answer to a question posed last month at the Colorado Solar and Storage Association’s conference in Denver. Enforcement has been on my mind because of two contrasting events – one in American politics, the other involving utility regulation – that perfectly underscore its importance at this moment.
While Americans are focused on today’s election, today’s post looks at our northern neighbor. Ontario, Canada’s provincial regulation 633/21 calls for all electric and gas utilities in Ontario to offer Green Button Connect (GBC) by November 1, 2023. So, now that we’re one year into this policy, how are things going?
First some background. Ontario’s Green Button policy is unique in North America due to the sheer number of utilities that are involved - about 57. According to our Green Button Explorer, the USA has only 27 utilities with a GBC mandate. Thus, Ontario is a laboratory for the widest range of implementation types across North America. This variety essentially stress-tests the concept of standardization: supposedly, the regulation requires each utility to be certified by the Green Button Alliance. So our first-year review is also asking the question: Is certification working?
The Biden Administration’s actions in the past week demonstrate a truly remarkable bipolarity with regard to empowering consumers.
Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued sweeping data portability rules for banks and fintechs. Known as “open banking,” the requirements allow consumers to have their banking data – transaction history, interest rates and loan information – transferred seamlessly to competing services. The rules are the culmination of a multi-year commitment by the Democratic party to support customer choice, prevent “lock-in,” and fuel competition on price and service quality.
But last Friday in another part of the Biden Administration, the Department of Energy (DOE) dismissed data portability requirements entirely for $2 billion in grants to electric utilities.
In order for demand response to grow and reduce wholesale power costs, we would be better off ripping out smart meters and going back to once-a-month meter readings.
That’s the implication from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) recent decision in which FERC dismissed a complaint by CPower against PJM Interconnection. CPower alleged that PJM’s tariff is unduly discriminatory because it requires Curtailment Service Providers (“CSPs”) to provide interval usage data for all customers with advanced meters.
But utilities often deny CSPs access to this information. FERC’s three Democratic Commissioners – Willie Phillips, David Rosner and Judy Chang – were appointed by President Biden and voted to deny the complaint.
September 19, 2024 – Mission:data Coalition, a nonprofit advocate for energy data portability, provides the following reaction to today’s FERC order denying CPower’s complaint. CPower alleged that PJM Interconnection’s (“PJM”) tariff is unduly discriminatory because it requires Curtailment Service Providers (“CSPs”) to provide interval usage data for all customers with advanced meters, but utilities often deny CSPs access to this information.
“Today’s order marks the beginning of the ‘Data Barriers’ era,” said Michael Murray, Mission:data’s co-founder and president. “Statistical sampling and submeters are poor substitutes for utility meter data. The time has come to force utilities to put customers in charge of their own information, rather than pursue workarounds."
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We have two exciting announcements today. First, the Green Button Explorer is now live, an interactive map of data availability from utilities across North America. If you have ever asked “Which utilities offer Green Button Connect, and what do they actually provide?” then this tool is for you!
Features include:
ISO/RTO requirements: What customer data does each wholesale market require for demand-side resources to be compensated? With over six months of research into eight RTOs and 30 products, we documented all of the pesky data requirements. Examples include line losses (PJM), copies of utility bills (ISO-NE), meter number (MISO), service voltage (NYISO) and transmission zone (IESO). Click on the top left (“filter”) and select the ISO/RTO.
Green Button Scorecard: The Scorecard is a 1-to-5 score of overall Green Button implementation quality. Most utilities do not provide enough data for wholesale market participation, according to our research, resulting in low “Data Completeness” scores. Tip: Look at the IESO in Ontario, Canada for the most completed Scorecards as of now. U.S. utilities will be added in the coming weeks.
Listen here to our wide-ranging discussion about smart meter data that’s been bottled up by utilities, making it inaccessible to energy management services. We discuss state policy, DOE’s recent failures, and why data portability is absolutely essential to a clean energy future.
July 17, 2024 — Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) is fumbling $1 billion of grants to electric utilities, according to our op-ed published yesterday in the New York Times.
DOE is not requiring data portability as a condition of its grants, which will ultimately total $3 billion. This puts the Energy Department at odds with other agencies that are recognizing the fundamental digital rights of consumers. Health and Human Services has established penalties for “information blocking” if a health care provider denies you the ability to transfer your data at your request, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has opened a rulemaking on Open Banking.
But DOE won't require data portability of its Smart Grid Grant recipients. This is especially disappointing because the Obama Administration made the same mistake. After pocketing $3 billion in taxpayer money in 2009-2014, utilities deactivated the real-time data-sharing features of 97% of federally-funded smart meters. Worst of all, the first $1 billion of grants that Biden announced last fall would have brought data portability to 36 million new electric customers, according to our estimate, essentially doubling the uptake of Green Button Connect nationwide.
If DOE were to simply require data portability in its grant contracts, the Energy Department would also be doing itself a favor. DOE is also administering $4.3 billion in IRA funding for energy efficiency. These rebates cannot be paid to consumers unless their meter readings are provided. Administering these rebates could be unnecessarily costly without streamlined data portability.
Finally, utilities’ track records warrant greater oversight from Biden’s DOE, not less. In the past, some utilities misled the Energy Department about the availability of data transfer tools in grant reports. Others toll-boothed real-time energy usage data with unregulated affiliates after receiving federal funds. DOE should do the right thing and tell utilities: If you want taxpayer money, put consumers in charge of their data.
With over 13 million Americans experiencing “dangerous” heat levels this week, we are reminded of how the cracks in our infrastructure begin to show as the mercury rises, like distribution transformers failing at sustained 110F temperatures, as happened in Spokane, WA during a previous “heat dome” event.
Energy data is infrastructure, too – and just because it’s digital doesn’t mean it’s immune from strain during a heat wave. Here are four ways our data infrastructure is crumbling, showing us that investments are sorely needed.
Today, Mission:data announced its first Green Button Scorecard™ release covering the terms and conditions of data portability for 15 utilities in Ontario, Canada.
Data recipients are forced to agree to the utilities’ terms and conditions in order to be granted access to customer’s energy usage, billing and account information. The terms and conditions have been disputed since O. Reg. 633/21 took effect November 1, 2023, which required local distribution utilities to offer Green Button Connect My Data (GBCMD). Energy management firms and Mission:data have noted that, because utilities’ terms are not individually approved by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), monopoly utilities can use their power to demand one-sided contracts with unfair or anti-competitive provisions.
Findings include:
With a 1-to-5 scale (1=lowest, 5=highest), scores ranged from 2.1 (Bluewater Power Distribution) to 3.5 (Alectra Utilities, non-Guelph region).
Hydro One surpasses other utilities in adhering to two out of three of OEB’s guidelines. But no utility we reviewed fully complied with the OEB’s direction regarding data accuracy, which erodes trust in Ontario’s Green Button program.
The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is the first Canadian university to work with large volumes of utility billing and metering data from multiple utilities. This research seeks to determine whether this newly available data differs from historical data in terms of accuracy, completeness, and consistency with other available sources. A critical aspect of the investigation is to ensure that the quality of the data does not compromise Ontario’s efforts to decarbonize its economy, as unreliable data can obstruct clean energy solutions such as energy conservation and demand management planning, demand response, and virtual power plants.
We developed a first-ever interactive demonstration, the Green Button Consent Toolkit. Users can input different scenarios and see what the customer sees: the accounts to be selected, the amount of historical data to be shared, and disclaimers to be presented.
Today, the Green Button market opened in Ontario, and Mission:data Coalition announces its intention to evaluate the quality of each electric and gas utility’s Green Button implementation. The forthcoming Green Button Scorecard™ is designed with three purposes in mind: (1) to provide the market with a centralized information resource about each utility’s offerings, (2) to provide metrics for continuous improvement as Ontario embarks on its journey toward energy data portability, and (3) to provide the government, utilities, third parties and utility accountholders with a platform to work together to serve the common goals of open data, competition and energy savings.
