Newsletter | February 2016

Newsletters,
Chairman's View |
Syed Mir, Chairman
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Green Button Alliance's formation. Our vision is to unite industry thought leaders and transform the way the industry and consumers access and use utility information. In just a year's time, the Alliance and the industry have made great strides in the education and adoption of Green Button usage data by energy service providers and their customers in North America and in Europe. As noted in the November newsletter, Green Button Alliance member Enel, one of the world's largest utilities, is piloting Green Button Download My Data to select customers in Italy. As you'll read below, this month SCE is leveraging its Green Button Connect My Data platform to provide additional functionality -- and PG&E recently made its Share My Data 2.0, based on Green Button Connect My Data, available to its customers. Green Button is also actively being discussed in initiatives such as NY REV and at key industry events including at next week's Parks Associates Smart Energy Summit.
The Green Button Alliance is growing the international Green Button ecosystem and ensuring Green Button data compliance and interoperability through its Testing and Certification program. In fact, this month London Hydro announced it has received Green Button Download My Data certification from UL for all types of Green Button usage data including electricity, water and natural gas, providing another example of the capabilities of the Green Button standard.
We look forward to working together during this upcoming year full of new Green Button developments.
Syed Mir
Welcome New Members! |
The Green Button Alliance is proud to welcome the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) and WattzOn as new members.
Member Spotlight | SCE

SCE provides customers the ability to authorize release of their interval usage data on a daily basis to a designated 3rd Party. The 3rd parties will use this information to provide their customers with options to manage and conserve energy. Beginning February 18th, a 3rd party can receive additional information such as billing information to provide their customers a more tailored experience. Additionally, customers will be given the option to choose how often their authorized 3rd party will be able to access their data, choosing between daily, monthly, and yearly.
SCE is leveraging the platform to not only support the Green Button Connect My Data program, but also to support other data feeds such as mandates and contractual obligations. This allows SCE to maintain its data transfer structure and increase participation in using the national Green Button standard through multiple channels. From a design perspective, SCE has continued to use this platform instead of building one-off solutions. Approximately 150 3rd parties have expressed interest in using this platform. SCE is diligently working towards getting these 3rd parties registered so they can begin to support their customers.
We will continue to communicate to 3rd parties about this program, offer this solution for any future data exchange efforts, and support the Green Button Alliance.

                    Member News |

Last month, Green Button Alliance founding member PG&E made its Share My Data 2.0 available to its customers. Share My Data 2.0 is a Green Button Connect My Data implementation that enables PG&E customers to easily share their electric and gas usage and billing data with authorized third party vendors via an API on an on-going basis. Share My Data empowers customers by raising awareness of energy usage and encourages companies to develop new, innovative customer-focused applications. To find out more, please visit www.pge.com/ShareMyData or email sharemydata@pge.com . 
The Green Button Alliance is proud to welcome the  Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative  (SGCC) as an Affiliate Member. The SGCC is a nonprofit organization that works to learn the wants and needs of energy consumers in the United States, encourage the collaborative sharing of best practices in consumer engagement among industry stakeholders, and educate the public about the benefits of the smart grid. The Green Button Alliance has also joined the SGCC as an Affiliate Member. As a member of the SGCC, the Green Button Alliance will work to further educate smart-grid consumers about the full capabilities and benefits of Green Button energy usage data.
Green Button Alliance member Energyworx has been recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Meter Data Management for the second year in a row. Energyworx provides a new way of offering MDM - a pure-play and disruptive, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service for the energy and utility sector. Read the full story  here !   Energyworx uses grid data from meters and other sources to power new use cases such as the Data Hub, which centralizes access to grid and meter data, enabling third parties to connect and offer new services to utility customers.
Tech Corner |
London Hydro announced it is the industry's first utility to complete the Green Button Alliance's Download My Data (DMD) Testing and Certification process for electricity, natural gas and water usage data. The utility will now be able to provide this information to its customers enabling them to easily access and efficiently manage their own resource consumption while opening opportunities for application vendors. 
Green Button Certified DMD stamp
The Alliance's technical staff worked with London Hydro during the certification test preparation, and Alliance founding member UL, a global leader in testing and certification services, conducted the Green Button DMD certification of London Hydro's implementation.  Utilities and energy service providers who have existing Green Button DMD implementations, or who are in the process of developing Green Button DMD offerings, can apply for Green Button DMD certification here
The Green Button Alliance's technical manager, Donald F. Coffin, has been elected to serve on the North American Energy Standards Board's (NAESB) REQ Executive Committee. The Green Button Download My Data (DMD) and Connect My Data (CMD) certifications are derived from NAESB's REQ. 21 Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI) standard. Coffin will impart his Green Button implementation expertise to enhance the NAESB ESPI standard to ensure Green Button data-compliance and interoperability.
Events & Activities | 
The Green Button Community Call #4
MaRS Discovery District (MaRSDD)  hosted the Ontario Green Button Community Call #4 on February 17th. MaRSDD's Caroline Bordeaux and Sasha Sud, who is also a member of the Green Button Alliance's board of directors, educated listeners on how Green Button DMD and CMD apply to business, the typical method by which customers sign-up to access their Green Button data, and how vendors register; as well as how customers and solution providers can get involved. If you missed the highly informative call, you can view the presentation  here .
GBA at DistribuTECH 
Last week, the Green Button Allliance exhibited at DistribuTECH 2016 in Orlando, Florida from February 9-11th in the booth of our founder, the  Utility Communications Architecture International Users Group (UCAIug) . During the week, we connected with many of our members and industry colleagues and gauged much new interest from companies and organizations interested in the benefits and capabilities of the Green Button standard. 
Green Button Alliance Affiliate Member, the SGCC, hosted it's  6th Annual Consumer Symposium: The Connected Consumer & the Future of the Grid  on February 8th, co-located with DistribuTECH 2016. Green Button Alliance board member, Christopher G. Irwin of the Department of Energy (DOE)  imparted his insights on the " What Have We Learned: Engaging Today's Consumer? " panel. SGCC announced it's 2016 CLEAR Award winners which include DTE Energy, Smart Utility Systems and Elevate Energy, a GBA Home Energy Information Accelerator partner. SGCC also released it's 2016 State of the Consumer Report, an analysis of recent success stories in consumer and community smart grid engagement.
What's next?
The Green Button Alliance is a proud supporter of the    7th-annual Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer  taking place February 22-24, 2016 in Austin, Texas . The executive summit will address the intersection of the utility and consumer technology markets creating the Internet of Things, including connected devices, energy management utility services, and home control platforms and services. Green Button Alliance members Martha Amram, founder and CEO of WattzOn and Daniel Roesler, CTO and co-founder of UtilityAPI will speak on the "Unlocking the Value of Energy Usage Data" panel on February 23rd.
                Kind regards,
 
                Barry Haaser, Executive Director
                Jeremy J. Roberts, General Manager
                Donald F. Coffin, Technical Manager
                Valdis Hellevik, PR Manager