Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Local Utilities Back Green Button Effort

A number of local utilities are backing an effort announced Wednesday by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, to help standardize and make household energy use information available to consumers. According to the White House, Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and eventually Southern California Edison, Glendale Power & Light, as well as others, will make a "Green Button" available on their websites which will make it easier for households to download their household energy use information. The effort also allows consumers to upload that usage data to online sites, who support a new "Upload Your Green Button Data Here" application. Energy information and consumption information is generally available from utilities, however, that usage information was usually embedded in statements, or across different formats. The new effort follows a new data standard created by the North American Energy Standards Board. That group will be providing a "Startup Kit" to help app developers and others to create their own applications to use the data.

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