Maximizing the Value of Data Exchange (Part 2): Data Access for Operational Efficiency

Utilities and regulators often perceive tools that help customers share their energy usage with service providers as “nice to haves,” but not critical for day-to-day customer needs. In the second of my three-part post, I discuss how these tools have the potential to provide cross-cutting operational savings across the utility and its customer base.

Utilities and customers can save money by deploying data exchange platforms that serve many different data uses and users at once.

Data platforms or intermediaries emerge in different industries because it’s way more efficient for a single entity to make data available in a standard way to many users, than for thousands or millions of data users to be buried in data management decisions. This is why companies like Plaid exist–they let you connect your bank to apps like Venmo, exchanging the transaction data behind the scenes so that you don’t have to individually download and email receipts to different entities. You can pay your friend for your half of dinner as soon as the check comes.

There is a similar concept within the utility industry as well: the data exchange platform. A data exchange platform has three core components:

1. It manages customer authentication and authorization, meaning the process by which a utility customer demonstrates they are who they say they are and therefore, can consent to sharing their information.

2. It manages third party registration and onboarding, meaning the process for vetting data recipients (like solar companies or DER aggregators), connecting them to the platform, and facilitating their ability to receive specific types of data based on the customer’s authorization.

3. It acts as a discrete software layer separate from the utility, receiving data from utility systems and processing and logging data transactions for visibility.

Currently, I have to log onto my utility web portal and download bills, email them to vendors, and then those vendors manually enter my billing data into the software they use to estimate what size heat pump I need. With a data exchange platform, each vendor could send me an email requesting I share my data, I could click on a link to verify myself with my utility, and approve them receiving 12 months of requested data (premise address, billing information, usage data). I do similar steps every day for all kinds of other purposes and applications–like adding a Zoom webinar to my Google work calendar.

How this works is crucial. An effective data exchange platform applies technology industry best practices–practices used by companies like Apple–to ensure customer privacy and cybersecurity. The industry standard for a data exchange platform is Green Button Connect™ (GBC), which is overseen by the Green Button Alliance. GBC comprises both data standards to ensure that information is presented with clear, consistent labeling regardless of utility or state, as well as protocols for transmission that incorporate data security practices like encryption. This design improves on older standards like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), allowing data transactions to scale.

Top-notch data exchange platforms also embed superior user experience, recognizing that because the point of electronic data-sharing is to eliminate all of the waste of data entry and reconciliation, the platforms have to be user-friendly. Again drawing from technology best practices, data exchange platforms should add ways for customers to see and add or revoke all of their authorizations in one place. They should use familiar practices like one-time texted passcodes to verify customers, instead of requiring account numbers. They should set up ways for a data user to get information through APIs or dashboards. In the future, data exchange platforms will support largescale, direct, in-app integrations, like this pilot between PG&E and Apple.

One way to think about how data exchange platforms fit into the utility industry is that they are the layer of software that helps different entities talk to each other and share controlled amounts of information. This architecture, certified to a security framework like SOC 2, protects the utility’s own systems. It ensures that only authorized entities interact with each other, about authorized information, with transactions fully separate from utility systems.

An important and sometimes overlooked benefit of a data exchange platform is that it can transact with many different types of data users who use similar data for different purposes, through the same set of interfaces.This is important for making an efficient, highly-used platform, because over the last decade, regulatory discussions about data systems have increasingly focused on what kinds of use cases they serve: project sizing, program enrollment, settlement, bill accuracy checks, etc. While some of the original data exchanges were guessing at the full range of data that was needed for bill management, the creation of use cases provides deeper context and real-world examples that help nail down specifics.

Now we have a much keener perspective of which datasets create the most value for customers and data users. ComEd and the Joint Non-Governmental Organizations (JNGOs) of Illinois did yeoman’s work to identify a core list of use cases to be served by a data platform and to map the data categories necessary to accommodate those use cases. Based on their work, four categories of data–raw meter usage data, billing quality usage data, billing data, and customer/account information–could serve 24 common use DER cases (see Slide 6-7). Moreover, their recommendations address basic requirements for that data to be accurate and usable–such as that it is marked when it is updated and that there are explanations for data gaps.

While the ComEd/JNGO work is deeply important, its conclusions are hardly shocking. In fact, they sync perfectly with our experience: that enrollment and performance evaluation for common distributed energy resource programs like behind-the-meter solar and storage, energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging, and beneficial electrification, tend to rely on the same basic data points. Attachments of data specifications filed in commission proceedings involving Green Button Connect requirements tend to converge on similar datasets. An example is the “minimum viable product” data set for a New Hampshire multi-use data platform (Appendix B).

Utilities and regulators can use this preexisting work to ensure that data exchange platforms focus on and extend to the most significant use cases for the jurisdiction, avoiding rabbit holes around edge cases. Certain regulated programs will be slam dunks for leveraging a data exchange platform. Utilities can drive usage by working with their implementers for DER programs that require monthly or interval usage data to enroll customers, size projects, and validate performance:

• The energy efficiency team can reach out to the utility’s trade allies for HVAC programs to show them how they can use the platform to avoid having to get hard copies of customer bills.

• The renewable energy team can inform battery storage providers about opportunities to test the platform as they enroll customers in rebate programs.

• The DER aggregator team can embed use of the platform in terms and conditions for emerging virtual power plant programs.

• Key accounts representatives can educate large retailers and municipal facilities managers on opportunities to use the platform for bill management and energy audits.

The core data sets used here can be strategically expanded to make the data exchange platform useful for additional purposes. For example, a few specific data points might be required for node identification or dual participation checks so that aggregators can participate in wholesale markets. Community solar gardens developers might need information about specific tariff components to provide more accurate pricing. In the future, improvements to how program enrollment is coded may open up a world of opportunity with categorical eligibility for income-qualified customers, allowing them to more easily enroll in multiple programs without disclosing details about their financial status.

Instead of building bespoke data tools because of different DERs or different use cases, a well-designed data exchange platform can cover an enormous spectrum of customer and third party needs, freeing up utility development resources to improve customers’ experience in other ways. Where there are variations in data needs, these can be identified by a skilled vendor working directly with data users, rather than by building entirely new tools or taking data users through the lengthy, expensive process of directly contracting with the utility for information. Ideally, regulators and utilities can commit to ensuring that data necessary for customers to participate in regulated energy programs is available, without specifically litigating each data point.

In my next post, I discuss how modern software products dramatically lower the costs and time to market of these platforms.