Environmental Defense Fund & Mission:data Support Data Access in Pennsylvania

This week, Environmental Defense Fund's Midwest Clean Energy Director, Dick Munson, blogged about our joint effort to support data access at Pennsylvania's Public Utilities Commission:

"Data access is central to customers realizing value from a utility’s investments in advanced energy measurement, and technology can further unlock the potential. But most people do not have the time to become an expert energy analyst simply to identify cost-effective efficiency opportunities. Therefore, most of us will rely on technologies, such as smart thermostats, and third parties to digest and synthesize meter data into actionable steps that increase efficiency, save money, and cut pollution."

The proceeding at PaPUC is docket number M-2009-2092655, "Submission of the Electronic Data Exchange Working Group's Web Portal Working Group's Solution Framework for Historical Interval Usage and Billing Quality Interval Use." The PaPUC has required electric distribution companies (EDCs, as the utilities are referred to in Pennsylvania) to implement data access not only for retail energy suppliers (electric generation suppliers, or EDSs), but also for other entities who have obtained customer consent. 

However, the working group's report from Feb 17th, 2015 is a proposal for serving only retailers, leaving no pathway for other entities to help Pennsylvanians reduce their energy usage. EDF and Mission:data asked the PaPUC to open a separate docket covering data access to non-retail third parties.

EDF/Mission:data comments available here.

Michael Murray quoted in today's GTM on "California DR 2.0"

Energy data access is an important part of California's new demand response programs, according today's Greentech Media article "California’s Demand Response 2.0 Creates New Competitive Markets."

"It’s huge, because Nest or anyone that has a cool thermostat, or some kind of curtailment mechanism, should be able to bid that directly into the market as a resource," Michael Murray said. "The utilities in California want all the demand response to go through them. So it's kind of a multi-front battle, wresting some control out of their hands." It's likely that Mission:data members, including energy management and distributed energy players like SolarCity, PlotWatt, Alarm.com, Bidgely, EcoFactor, Lucid and iControl, will see opportunities in that battle.

What wasn't mentioned are Mission:data's recent wins. Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric have committed to provide revenue-quality meter data via Green Button Connect. That means that Green Button data, acquired seamlessly, has sufficient accuracy to settle DR transactions with California ISO. That means entrepreneurs don't need to write their software to the clumsy and outdated Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standard.

PG&E said it would provide revenue-quality data in its amended advice letter in August 2014. SDG&E confirmed it would provide revenue-quality data at the February 6, 2015 "Birth of the Green Button" event (SDG&E slide deck).

'Birth of the Green Button': Utility presentations posted online

The February 6th, 2015 "Birth of the Green Button" event at SDG&E's Energy Innovation Center featured presentations from utilities and entrepreneurs. It was a big success all around, featuring former White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nick Sinai, a video from current Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith (who couldn't be in attendance), Barry Haaser of the newly-formed Green Button Alliance, and utilities SDG&E, PG&E, Southern California Edison, and London Hydro. 

DOE has a nice summary here:

http://energy.gov/eere/articles/energy-innovation-green-button-initiative-empowering-americans-save-energy-and-money

For the presentations and technical information on the roll-out of Green Button Connect in California, you can view the presentations here:

http://greenbuttondata.org/Events/index.html