Sacramento, CA – The Mission:data Coalition, a coalition of technology companies delivering consumer-focused energy savings for homes and businesses, today announced release of The EmPOWERED Consumer, a report documenting how consumers’ access to their own energy data can help solve America’s biggest energy challenge – energy use in buildings.
“Our challenge is how to reduce energy use in homes and buildings, and new data-driven technologies have emerged as one of our most powerful tools to better manage that use,” said Jim Hawley of the Coalition. “This report highlights the leadership of California, Texas and Illinois and offers insights into the energy and monetary savings that residents of those states are beginning to achieve.”
“More than 50 million advanced meters in the U.S. can provide consumers with detailed information about their energy use, enabling consumers to use new energy management technologies to achieve big energy savings. The problem is that many states have not provided consumers with access to their own data from these ratepayer or taxpayer-funded investments, missing a big opportunity for their consumers to save energy and money,” said Michael Murray, also of the Coalition.
Today’s report documents the leadership of three states – California, Texas, and Illinois – in providing consumers access to their detailed energy usage data from their advanced or “smart” meters, free of charge, and the ability to use this data to save energy. Providing consumers with access to their energy data enables household energy savings averaging up to 12% or more. With data access now enabled or being enabled in these states, consumers are beginning to realize significant energy savings, often at a fraction of the cost of traditional energy efficiency programs. And because U.S. buildings represent the one of the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the savings enabled by consumer access to energy data represent an opportunity to cost-effectively address the issue of climate change.
“Data access is key to unlocking customer insights and benefits through the advanced analytics offered by our Energy Intelligence Software,” said Mona Tierney-Lloyd, Board Member of Mission:data and Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs for EnerNOC, Inc. “The rules adopted in California and Texas and being considered in Illinois provide customers and their trusted advisors with data access and has allowed us to help customers be wiser consumers and better energy managers. The data access unlocked by these states has meant we’ve been able to help a variety of customers across the commercial and industrial spectrum.”
Detailed information about The Empowered Consumer and the Mission:data coalition can be found at www.missiondata.org.