Automating Data Portability for Business Customers: UtilityAPI & Opower’s Collaboration

UtilityAPI
Marketing

Introduction

Business customers represent up to two-thirds of a typical utility’s energy load, with the average business consuming 11 times more electricity than a residential customer. This segment increasingly requires automated, secure, programmatic access to their energy data to support sustainability initiatives, optimize operations, install distributed energy resources (DERs), and reduce grid demand during periods of high usage. However, traditional utility data sharing approaches often involve manual processes and siloed systems, whether it be through bespoke Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) platforms or simply key account managers emailing spreadsheets. Current practices not only cause friction for key business customers, but they also expose utilities to unnecessary operational costs, potential security risks, and data privacy concerns.

This challenge is particularly exacerbated for multi-site businesses operating across different utility territories. As Walmart noted in testimony to the State Office of Administrative Hearings regarding El Paso Electric’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure deployment: “It is only the ability to automate the dataflow from the utility to the customer that makes the data usable” (SOAH Docket No. 473-21-2607).

Through our partnership with Oracle Energy and Water, UtilityAPI’s Utility Data Exchange product provides a robust, secure, and extensible platform that allows utilities to become a seamless integration partner to their business customers. UtilityAPI is the largest provider of certified Green Button Alliance platforms in North America, with utilities like American Electric Power (AEP), National Grid, and Eversource trusting them to extend their data networks to the grid edge. UtiltiyAPI’s vast network of market-leading third-party users like Prologis, Engie, Enel X, and Yardi ensures utilities are a seamless partner in their customers’ business operations.

The Commercial Data Access Challenge

Serious limitations exist for utilities without data access, and traditional engagement tools are simply not enough. Across the spectrum, we see the following limitations:

  • Engagement portals and tools tend to focus on experience and analytics, but lack standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for integration into customer workflows;
  • Data often comes in non-standard formats;
  • Customers with a mix of small and large sites may not have all data available within their customer engagement portal;
  • No auditable record of what third parties are given access to customer data;
  • Key accounts managers are often asked to troubleshoot inconsistent or unreliable data feeds;
  • Customer specific data transfer is often set up for niche use cases through batch Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) processes or, worse, scheduled emails;
  • Customers lack the ability to integrate their enterprise toolkits into utility data streams;
  • Data latency and reliability are not subject to service level agreements (SLAs) required for financial use cases like consolidated billing or market settlement; and
  • Redundant and potentially conflicting data feeds between EDI, engagement tools, and general bills.

UtilityAPI and Opower’s Integrated Solution

UtilityAPI and Opower’s partnership delivers a comprehensive solution that addresses these challenges through a complementary technology stack:

  1. Opower’s Business Customer Engagement portal provides the front-end experience, enabling businesses to visualize their energy usage and receive actionable insights through its interface. This gives commercial customers the analysis tools they need to make informed energy decisions.
  2. UtilityAPI’s Utility Data Exchange (UDX) platform adds an automation layer, providing standardized access to energy data through secure APIs. This enables business customers to integrate their utility data directly into their existing systems and workflows. Critically, utility key accounts are able to access their own standardized data instantly, without having to be burdened by manual processes or wait times for manual retrievals.
  3. Together, this solution creates a seamless experience where business customers can both analyze their energy use through Opower’s customer engagement portal and automatically sync their data to external systems through UtilityAPI’s APIs.

Benefits to Utilities 

Utilities face mounting pressure to provide their business customers with modern, efficient ways to access and manage their energy data. Traditional approaches requiring manual downloads or custom data requests create critical problems for utilities and their customers. By providing a self-service platform that easily integrates into business customers’ workflows, utilities save time and money across their operations across the following areas:

  1. Operational efficiency realized by eliminating the key account manager time spent on manual data fulfillment, information technology (IT) integration costs associated with bespoke integrations, and legal time spent working through bilateral contracting.
  2. Privacy and security exposure is dramatically reduced by providing a Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2) certified platform that utilizes best-in-class authentication, authorization, and encryption methods consolidated in an auditable platform for access management administrated by the utility. 
  3. Program integration enabled through an automated system that allows trade allies, implementers, and contractors to register, agree to terms and conditions, and embed authorization within their own customer experiences.
  4. Reporting requirements self-served by customers using tools demonstrated across the country for building benchmarking requirements, Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, performance-based incentives, and market integrated programs.
  5. Enhanced satisfaction among high-value commercial customers through automated data access capabilities. This strengthens the utility’s position as a trusted energy advisor to business customers.
  6. Improved visibility and control over data sharing through comprehensive administrative tools and audit capabilities.
  7. Reducing paperwork from individual contracts with customers and their solution providers through standardized terms of service, limiting risk exposure.

Benefits to Business Customers 

Major enterprises are already benefiting from this automated approach to utility data access. Rather than manually gathering data from multiple utility portals, their energy management vendor now automatically retrieves standardized data through direct API connections. Some key segments where these tools can really resonate include:

  • National accounts;
  • Municipalities and utilities;
  • Telecommunications;
  • Data centers and technology.

This automation enables customers to consolidate data, manage costs, more efficiently manage their energy usage, verify efficiency projects, and meet measurement and verification (M&V) reporting requirements. The streamlined data access has eliminated manual processing while ensuring data consistency across locations. For utilities, the integrated solution delivers several key advantages:

  • Modern integration through enterprise APIs that business customers understand and using data formats consistently used across the utilities they operate in. 
  • Reduced administrative burden spent on automated data collection and processing and more time spent working strategically with their key account manager. 
  • Seamless integration with existing energy management, sustainability, and operational solution providers through current UtilityAPI users like Engie, Enel X, Yardi, and others.
  • Native energy modeling due to the growing set of integrations from providers like Energy Toolbase and Xendee that allow business customers to model new projects consistently across their portfolio.
  • Reduced disputes during settlement or bill consolidation due to consolidation of disparate data systems and processes within a common data access platform. 
  • Enterprise access management through self-service tools that allow customers to monitor and manage which third parties have access to which data across their portfolio.
  • Streamlined compliance with traceable consent and disclosure that ensures enterprises can meet California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance requirements. 
  • No more manual file transfers or one-time downloads that cannot support sophisticated energy management programs or automated reporting requirements.
  • Ongoing monitoring for rate management, energy efficiency, distributed energy resource, and demand response programs with data that flows to the customer as soon as it’s available within the utility system. 

Solution Architecture

UDX provides multiple user flows for Business Customers to retrieve their energy usage data.

Key Account Manager Account Assignment and Data Linking Flow

This user flow supports businesses with multiple utility accounts and enables the account mangaers at the Utility to provision data access consent for all accounts associated with the business. 

  1. Business end-user (or third party) registers with UDX platform; 
  2. Customer account manager at the utility assigns data authorizations providing approval for all associated customer accounts to that end-user’s registration, via the UDX administrator portal; 
  3. Business end-user can then retrieve energy usage data across one or more associated accounts, and their respective meters, with a single transaction, in multiple file or API formats. 

The graphic below details these steps:

Key Account Manager Assignment Flow

Self-Service Flow

This user flow supports business customers of all sizes and their solution providers with a self-service approach to retrieving energy usage data across all associated accounts. 

  1. The business end-user (or third party) registers with the UDX platform, and is approved by the utility account manager via the UDX administrator portal. After approval the utility account manager submits a data request form to the business’ primary account owner. 
  2. The primary account owner receives the data request, authenticates themselves with the utility and then assigns all or selected accounts to the business end user, providing authorization for that end-user to access the associated energy usage data for those accounts. 
  3. The business end user can retrieve the authorized energy usage data with a single transaction, in multiple file or API formats. 

The graphic below details the self-service user flow.

Self-Service Flow

Looking Forward

By providing both energy data analytics and easy access to standardized data, utilities can help their business customers achieve their energy management and sustainability goals while reducing their own operational costs. As load growth accelerates due to manufacturing reshoring and increased data center demands, utilities need solutions that automate unnecessary processes and scale to meet the needs of their customers. With increasing rate pressures and resilience becoming a greater priority, business customers need scalable, data-driven solutions to meet their energy needs. 

The UtilityAPI and Opower solution creates a secure, modern integration layer that enables utilities, business customers, and their solution providers to seamlessly work together more efficiently using proven, best-in-class APIs in use throughout the country. 

UtilityAPI is proud to partner with Opower to deliver data access solutions that enable commercial accounts to take on energy projects that reduce their demand on the grid. 

About UtilityAPI

For over the last decade, UtilityAPI has been at the forefront of developing software solutions that power the nation’s energy ecosystem by enabling the safe and secure sharing of customer utility data. Today, our data sharing platform and products service some of the largest utilities in the country, including National Grid, Eversource, and AEP, alongside Fortune 500 service providers such as Engie and Prologis, and public/non-profit entities like NYSERDA and GRID Alternatives.

We are trusted by these partners because we are clear with our role: providing secure, consent-driven data connectivity between load-serving entities and the service providers their customers rely on. Our business is built on three core principles: We value privacy, security, and transparency above all else; we do not monetize the data of our partners or their customers; and we do not participate in the markets we serve.

Our software enables utility customers to quickly and securely share their energy usage data with third parties to help monitor and manage their energy use. Through our centralized data exchange, we help utilities comply with regulatory mandates while providing a solution that offers best-in-class security and ease of use. Furthermore, our platform enables utilities to proactively vet and verify third-party contractors requesting data access, as opposed to traditional data sharing practices where customers manually share their data with unverified contractors. By providing an easy-to-use data integration platform that eliminates manual data sharing, we facilitate secure data exchanges that support customers undertaking energy management initiatives.

If you would like to learn more about UtilityAPI’s product offering, please contact:

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