'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

PG&E shows how HAN pairing should be done

Though released nearly a year ago, it is worth reviewing how PG&E lets you pair Home Area Network (HAN) devices with your smart meter. The process is simple and straightforward: Login to PG&E, enter your HAN's serial number, and voila!

See PG&E's Powerpoint on HAN pairing (2.4MB PPT)

Other utilities across the country are considering enabling HAN. If they do, they should skip the paper forms and bureaucratic morass that typically accompanies utility business processes, and go straight to a system like PG&E's: instant, on-demand, customer-friendly.

PG&E Now Pre-Registering for Green Button Connect

PG&E's "Share My Data" team emailed third parties this morning. PG&E is requesting email responses to gauge interest in a pre-registration system for Green Button Connect. Please email PG&E at ShareMyData@pge.com!

-Michael

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Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is excited to announce the Share My Data platform (formerly known as Customer Data Access), the next generation of Green Button Connect. Share My Data will provide a new, more seamless way for PG&E customers to authorize sharing their energy usage data with you.

PG&E is considering pre-registering Third Parties on a first come first serve basis in preparation for the launch. Along with PG&E’s development timelines and testing of the platform, your responses to the questions below will help PG&E determine whether early registration is a possibility. By registering early, Third Parties will have the opportunity to utilize the Share My Data platform and ensure that they are set up prior to the Full Launch beginning First Quarter 2015. 

Please note that customer authorizations and sharing of data will not begin earlier than PG&E’s planned full deployment beginning First Quarter 2015.  

Registration will be a 3-step process:

Step 1- Registration Request. Go online (link to be provided), complete and submit the online registration form

Step 2- Eligibility Review. PG&E will process the registration request. You will need to meet the following eligibility requirements to register: 

• • Valid Tax ID (this will be unique identifier for you or your organization)
  • Provide Valid Contact Information
  • Be in good standing with the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC)
  • Technical Capabilities (oAuth2.0 and API capabilities)
  • Provide transparency to customers on how you will use Customer Data
  • Agreement to the Tariff and Terms and Conditions

Once your eligibility has been verified, A PG&E team member will request your SSL certificate. Upon successfully storing that certificate, your registration will be approved.

Step 3- Connectivity Testing.    Upon registration approval, you will be able to access PG&E’s SSL certificate, your registration access token and client credentials by logging into the Share My Data Third Party Portal. You will also receive an email with a link to connectivity test directions. Upon successful completion of Connectivity Testing, your organization will officially be approved as an organization with whom customers can share their data using the Share My Data platform.  Note that customer authorizations and the exchange of customer data will not start until Q1 2015. 

To register early, all three processes need to be completed in 10 business days.

Next Steps:

If you would like to be among the first to register for Share My Data, please complete the questions below by replying to this email.

1.    What is the name of your company?

2.    Please describe your company’s business purpose, target market segment (residential/commercial/industrial/agricultural), and use for the Share My Data platform.

3.    What browser is most commonly utilized at your organization (i.e. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.)?

4.    Is your company interested in being one of the first Third Parties to register for Share My Data? Will your company have the technical capability by early December 2014 to complete all required steps of registration, including connectivity testing, within 10 business days? If not, what is the timeframe, if any, that your organization will have the technical capability to complete all required steps of registration?

5.    What, if any marketing plans does your company have targeted for customers?

PG&E has not yet confirmed whether an early registration launch will be possible for any or all Third Parties and is simply gauging interest and technical capability. Based on the order in which PG&E receives your email response, the Share My Data team will determine your position in the pre-registration line and may contact you with information on next steps.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

Amanda O’Brien

PG&E Share My Data Team

Training and Change Management Lead

Georgia Power dismisses customer interest in usage data

We were surprised to read Georgia Power's "Hourly Usage Information Compliance Filing" (Docket 36989; 3-page PDF) because it reveals how a large utility disparages the idea that customers should have a right to know how much of a utility's product they consume. GP starts by saying: "Georgia Power's residential customers also have access to a wide variety of usage information to help them manage their energy usage." What tools do customers have available to them? Their monthly bills, the utility's call-center, and, of course, customers can "read their own meters." Amazingly, these pearls of customer service wisdom are coming from one of the nation's largest electric utilities in the 21st century.

It gets worse. In a thinly veiled attempt to derail customer data access, GP cites examples from the My Power Usage program in which customers expressed little interest in their usage data. GP solicited 70,000 customers for the program, but "less than one half of one percent demonstrated interest in seeing hourly usage." Of course, if GP's "solicitations" are anything like the junk that appears regularly in our mailboxes, it isn't hard to see why the participation rates are low. GP charges $150/month for access to their "Energy Direct" website, making uptake understandably low. But more importantly, why does GP think that it, and not entrepreneurs, are best suited to deliver the value of energy data? Surely some GP employees know that a simple graph of hourly energy usage is not enough to delight your customer; the data must be transformed into information and insight first. With technological advances in the last few years, innovative companies are much more likely to discover those data-driven insights than regulated monopolies.

-Michael

Duke Energy launches new energy efficiency initiative

Earlier this month, Duke Energy Carolinas began a new shared-savings cost-recovery method for energy efficiency in North and South Carolina.

Over the next three years, the company will be able to recover the cost of approved energy efficiency and demand-side management programs and make an 11.5 percent profit on the value of the energy saved. Duke can also collect $400,000 more in any year that its energy savings is 1 percent or better than the savings in the previous year.

This new initiative shows how a company can earn money and recover finances from investing in energy efficiency. It replaces the successful Save-A-Watt program, but Duke had difficulties in implementing the initiative and having regulators oversee it.