What's the Green Button?

By Jeff Postelwait,
Online Editor

The Internet is buzzing this morning as utilities and energy companies gush their support of an industry-led, White House-spurred energy efficiency program called the "Green Button."

I remember posting about the Green Button first when San Diego Gas & Electric shortly before DistribuTECH 2012 came to San Diego. Here's an outside link to SDG&E's version of the Green Button on their customer website.

But now I'm seeing around a dozen different companies, each with their own announcements either of support of or participation in this program.

Itron, Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., PECO, American Electric Power, Reliant Energy, Oracle, Silver Spring Networks, OPower, Efficiency 2.0, Schneider Electric, FirstFuel were just a few I could find as of press time. These are some of the utilities who will make Green Button functionality available to customers, or else provide some kind of logistical support for the effort.

Announcements of supporting utilities and companies are still going out. A few other major participants include Centerpoint Energy, Glendale Power & Light, Pepco Holdings, Southern California Edison, Dominion Virginia Power, Austin Energy, Commonwealth Edison and PG&E. Click here for a full list of companies that are supporting the Green Button.

What these utilities all seem to have in common is they've each had some kind of large smart meter deployment in their histories, which makes me wonder if those meters might be a part of some new, thus-unmentioned functionality for the Green Button program at some point in the future. Or maybe it's just that these companies want to be seen as both "smart" and "green."

Reports are that this initiative is a response to a White House challenge to American utilities to engage and empower consumers to help them save energy and money while also driving innovation in energy efficiency.

In fact, President Barack Obama, currently on a mini-tour of the U.S. to highlight his ideas on energy policy that included a recent stop in Cushing, Oklahoma to talk oil pipelines, will be talking about the Green Button at Ohio State University later today. So clearly this is a program the administration is proud of.

All told, nearly 30 million customers may now live in the footprint of the Green Button. But what does the Green Button do and how can customers use it?

"By clicking a Green Button, residential and commercial utility customers can download detailed energy usage information in a standardized format to manage consumption and costs," or so say the press releases.

For the Department of Energy's part, the federal agency decided to pony up about $8 million in grant funding to spur the development of "apps for energy" that help customers learn more about how much power they use.

This initiative may just be step one in the effort to educate consumers about their energy use, however. As the process evolves a bit and becomes more automated, it could become easier for electric customers to learn about their energy habits.

Even for a guy like me, who spends most of his waking life online, the process looks a bit involved. It looks like customers will have to start up an account with their utility's website if they don't have one already, then download the data to some kind of third-party application. Maybe a more streamlined process could be in the works.

Still, there could be a sign that the initiative could improve in the sheer number of technology types who are crowing about the Green Button. Google, Intel, GE Energy, Verizon and Johnson Controls, have each sent out letters in support of Green Button.

Lending credence to this theory is the White House's official blog, which said, "Companies are already developing Web and smartphone applications and services for businesses and homeowners that can use Green Button data."

So, assuming this gadget garners any measurable interest from people in these utilities' service territory (and actually use the information to cut demand down a bit), we might hear more about this Green Button thing later on. I'll keep an eye out.