GBA’s Annual General Meeting Featured Green Button Policy Leaders, Advancements, & Member Solutions

December 3, 2021

in GBA News Blog, Member News,

GBA’s Annual General Meeting Featured Green Button Policy Leaders, Advancements, and Member Solutions

The Green Button Alliance held its 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) online on 04 November. The meeting featured keynote talks by Usman Syed, Director, Conservation and Energy Efficiency at the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Donald M. Kreis, Consumer Advocate of New Hampshire; both of whom expertly discussed ground-breaking Green Button regulatory policy advancements in their respective regions. They were joined by speakers from the GBA’s Board of Directors and staff who further educated attendees on new Green Button Connect My Data utility deployments, feature-rich Green Button applications and new Connect My Data integrations, industry collaborations, and much more.

Highlights of the AGM included the GBA’s presentation of two “2021 Energy Data Policy Leader” awards. The GBA recognized Usman Syed for his long-time vision and leadership in working to provide Ontarians with seamless, digital access to their energy usage data. Mr. Syed accepted the award on behalf of the team at the Ontario Ministry of Energy including (L-R): Kelly Brown, Stephen Rhodes, Usman Syed, Matthew Edwards, Emma Schwab-Pflug and Andrew Howse, for their outstanding and on-going work in guiding the province’s Green Button initiative for the benefit of Ontarians.

The GBA also recognized Donald M. Kreis, Consumer Advocate, New Hampshire with the “2021 Energy Data Policy Leader” award for his leadership in envisioning the benefits of a standards-based Statewide, Multi-use, Energy Data Platform for the state of New Hampshire. Mr. Kreis was instrumental, along with colleague Jim Brennan, in drafting legislation for the platform's creation, including ensuring customer data privacy will be protected and specifying the platform will be tested and Certified by the GBA to ensure all the benefits of the Green Button Connect My Data standard will be gained by users. The legislation was signed by Governor Christopher Sununu in July, 2019. Through a cooperative and collaborative process with stakeholders, a unanimous settlement agreement regarding the platform's framework was reached in May, 2021. Policymakers in other states now look to New Hampshire’s model as an example when considering similar implementations in their states. The agreement is currently awaiting the PUC's approval which would enable the process of developing the platform to move forward.

The GBA thanks Mr. Syed, the team at the Ontario Ministry of Energy, and Mr. Kreis, for their industry leadership in driving forward energy policies to the benefit of constituents and congratulates them on their well-deserved recognitions.

Following the awards presentation, attendees heard from speakers from GBA member companies. Daniel Roesler, founder and CTO of UtilityAPI and Vice Chair of the GBA expertly educated on key value propositions of Green Button Connect My Data, Green Button use cases, and highlighted UtilityAPI's latest Green Button Connect My Data implementations. Jeff Hendler, CEO of Logical Buildings and GBA board member highlighted the success and expansion of Logical Buildings' GridRewards’ program leveraging Con Edison’s Connect My Data implementation in New York. Zoran Stojanovic, Director, Information Systems at GBA member London Hydro featured several innovative Green Button Connect My Data platform-based customer solutions and use cases, as well as co-presented with Jay Lewis, CEO of Big Data Energy Services and a GBA board member who discussed the value of Green Button data for third-party services.

A recording of the the GBA's 2021 AGM can be viewed here.