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5/28/2020 Simple question: Does it matter? Simple question: Does it matter? Simple answer: YES. UtilityAPI proudly identifies as a "mission-driven company.” Our mission is to fight climate change. The way we fight climate change is by making it easier for you, our customers, to help people convert to, use and store clean forms of energy. We give you the energy data you need to do your business faster and more easily, with less risk. This is decarbonization: the process of converting from carbon-based fuels — which both pollute our planet and contribute to making it warmer — to wind, solar or other non-carbon renewable forms of energy, which don’t. So, just how much decarbonizing are we all doing when you use UtilityAPI’s fast, easy, accurate utility data? Every month, UtilityAPI makes it possible for you and your customers to reduce CO2 emissions equivalent to driving 33,000,000 fewer miles. EVERY MONTH. That’s about 1300 fewer car trips around the earth every month. Not that any of us is traveling much these days. Still, 33,000,000 fewer miles driven per month is a number that matters. You matter. Your work matters, so our work matters. Without all of us doing the work of decarbonization together, the planet doesn’t really stand a chance. Thank you for also being mission-driven. Thanks for decarbonizing with UtilityAPI. Thanks for hanging in there through COVID-19. Decarbonizing is pretty great. Join us! Our data makes it so much easier for you to use online sales during these pandemic times, and beyond. What are you waiting for?
 Dan Rosenberg had the same problem many of you have. He needed utility data faster. Requests that used to take a week to come through were taking closer to a month. And often, only a fraction of the data would come in. Then his team would submit another request. And the whole month-long wait would start again. It was ridiculous. Or, as Dan Rosenberg put it more delicately, it was "a bottleneck for our development process." For TerraVerde Energy, a company who builds their business on data analytics, the delays were also project-killers. But their partnership with UtilityAPI changed all that. Saving money and the planet through energy efficiency TerraVerde helps public schools and other agencies save energy and money. They construct advanced analytics and financial models to determine which solar and storage projects will best achieve those goals. In order to do their work, they need access to a client’s billing history and interval data by meter. When the data request process got bogged down, TerraVerde looked for a better solution. They found it with UtilityAPI. Three weeks or less than one hour: which would you prefer to wait? When TerraVerde integrated with UtilityAPI, their data retrieval wait time dropped from three+ weeks to less than an hour. Now, once a client has authorized data sharing, they can compile anywhere from one to three years worth of billing and interval data nearly instantly. It’s high quality data, too. The data itself is in “a much more usable format than what the utility itself would send us,” says Rosenberg. Although TerraVerde installs consumption meters at every site, there are hiccups. “They [consumption meters] are unreliable; sometimes there are a few months before they are installed or there may be gaps in the data, so to have those bills that have what the utilities are actually measuring is just more valuable.” UtilityAPI’s data is more valuable. Automatic data refreshes make measuring impact easy Automated data has further smoothed the entire process. TerraVerde takes advantage of UtilityAPI’s automatic data refreshes to measure the impact of a new system. They also compile an annual savings report for solar and storage projects using interval data. What stands out for Rosenberg is how easy the process was. He collected 95% of the utility data he needed to create an annual report for a school’s July - June cycle “by running 100 lines of code for 10 minutes.” TerraVerde’s analysts simply direct UtilityAPI to update the meter data. Downloads happen automatically. Next up: seamless, integrated data sweetens the deal Because it’s so efficient, TerraVerde has been tweaking their software to rely on UtilityAPI as the primary data source. They‘re also integrating their clients’ solar monitoring systems with UtilityAPI. This way, they can calculate savings for these large scale projects automatically, then offer it on demand to their clients. Delays are project-killers. But thanks to UtilityAPI, TerraVerde Energy has come a long way from having one person contact a utility rep, list 100 meters, and wait 3 weeks. You can, too! Get a free demo to see how much time we can save you.
Dear Solar Installers,
YOU are the heart of our industry. Without you, there is no solar energy sector. We (all) need your business to survive the Coronavirus shutdowns. A Gift for You Sales in the near future are going to have to be remote. That’s why UtilityAPI and OpenSolar want to give you 3 free months of awesome, easy utility data. We want to make remote sales as painless for you as possible. To get your free data, you’ll need to register with AND use your (free) account at OpenSolar. That free data is your gift. But we see OpenSolar as a gift to our entire industry, too. What is OpenSolar + Why it’s Great OpenSolar is a full-service suite of new, free tools to fully digitize your solar installer business. Phone and remote sales. Design. Finance. Customer relationship management. [And, coming soon, live 3D modeling]. It’s all there. It’s all free to use, forever. OpenSolar comes to you from industry veterans who know what you need. Their founders have infused their product with the wisdom gained in over two decades of experience in our industry (co-founding Sungevity, the first remote solar design company, and for the last three years, OpenSolar). After a successful launch in Australia, where 20% of homes run on solar (the dream!), OpenSolar has made their full cloud-based tool available in the US. Take a minute to have a look. You’ll see how easy it is to go digital with OpenSolar. And if you’re already selling remotely, you’ll be impressed by the breadth and functionality of the OpenSolar tool. Details + Fine Print There is no fine print. It’s really just 3 months of free data when you use your OpenSolar account. Even if you’re already a UtilityAPI customer. You can read the press release for all the details, though. Sincerely, 👋🏼Your friends at UtilityAPI  Faster, easier data helped ARC Alternatives do their Deep Energy Efficiency Study of the SJSU Chiller If it’s not fast, it’s dead on arrival.
ARC Alternatives, a small San Francisco-based consulting company, wins contracts when they can analyze and deliver results quickly. Once they started using UtilityAPI, they were able to deliver those results more than 10x faster. ARC is a collective of engineers and project managers. Their clients include public sector organizations, large institutions, and school districts in California. ARC figures out how those clients can save both energy and money. ARC’s clients want the same fast, data-based answers that your customers do. How much will a proposed improvement cost? How much energy will they save? Is there a better way? Before they found UtilityAPI, gathering data was often the hardest part of their workflow. ARC’s clients have many utility meters, many with limited or missing histories. In order to compile historical energy usage data, they had to work with local utilities to get their clients’ records. Once those utilities granted them access, they then had to track down the relevant historical data within the accounts. The process could take weeks, depending on if/when the utility got around to responding. In short, the stuff of nightmares. We know many of you share this pain. Once ARC partnered with UtilityAPI, that particular pain disappeared. UtilityAPI now makes energy data available with one simple authorization. What used to take weeks now takes less than 24 hours. Sometimes, it only takes five minutes. “UtilityAPI has modernized the method of retrieving historical utility data,” says Simon Olivieri, an ARC Alternatives engineer. This ultra-fast access helped ARC streamline their process. And it made them hungry for more data. Now that ongoing data updates have strengthened their client relationships, ARC uses UtilityAPI for automated regular updates of usage data, which we call ‘ongoing monitoring’ as well. The future belongs to the fast. Thanks to UtilityAPI, ARC Alternatives can take their shot at leading the pack.  You can go from clicking on the sign up link on UtilityAPI’s website to requesting your customers’ utility data in about a minute. Here’s your step-by-step guide to registering with UtilityAPI.
When you click on the sign up button, in the top right corner of UtilityAPI.com, the website will take you to our registration page. You’ll enter your name, your company email, and a password. Next you’ll pick how you want to pay. ‘Pay-as-you-go’ is the default option. You’ll pay absolutely nothing to request that your customer share data with you. Requests to share data are free. After your customer authorizes your request, you’ll pay $15 per meter for past “historical” data from a customer’s meter. If you want a discount (who doesn’t want a discount?), you can pre-pay a lump sum to your account. The more you pre-pay, the bigger your discount. As you use UtilityAPI services, we’ll subtract the charges from your account balance. You can find all of our prices here. Your pre-paid lump sum will automatically refill when it runs out unless you choose to turn off that feature. If you turn off auto-refill, you will not be able to pull data until you have enough money in your account to pay for that data. Still have questions? No problem — just contact us. We’re sticklers for privacy and consent. Data belongs to the customer who generated it. We won’t pull your customer’s data until that customer explicitly authorizes it. You’ll find all this and more written in legal language in our Data Services Agreement, which you’ll need to agree to if you want to do business with UtilityAPI. Then, hit ‘Register’ and you’re done. Welcome! Now you can start requesting data. Remember, data requests are free! Next week, we’ll walk you through how to request data. But you don’t have to wait! We explain data requests here. Want to communicate with an actual human being about this? Get a demo of how we work? Sure — just contact us. But shouldn’t utility data be free, easy, secure and accurate for everybody, everywhere? Your dream utility data: accurate, secure, free, and available when you want it. And the kicker: easy.
Some of you are already living the dream with Silicon Valley Clean Energy and UtilityAPI’s joint pilot, the Data Hive. 50 solution providers have already jumped at the chance to sign up for their free data. [You can too. Sign up here.] In Greentech Media’s April 13th piece, UtilityAPI’s CEO, Devin Hampton, shared that any utility can easily use our software. This software blazes a trail toward the cooperative, decarbonized future that the Obama administration’s Green Button initiative imagined. “We built this software to be drop-in software; any CCA, IOU, muni, co-op, should be able to implement it with a minimal setup,” he said. “It should be seamless, no matter what the system is.” GTM described the simplicity of the Data Hive’s sharing process. “With a few clicks, SVCE customers can authorize one of these companies to obtain and analyze their historical and ongoing 15-minute smart meter interval energy usage data.” No account numbers needed. No customer passwords (though your customer needs to authorize data sharing). And perhaps best of all, no waiting. Read time: 2 minutes
UtilityAPI just joined forces with Silicon Valley Clean Energy to jump into the future of clean energy. UtilityAPI took our existing mission — fast, easy access to utility data — and added a certain four letter word: F-R-E-E. Now, thanks to SVCE’s Data Hive, you all have one less thing to worry about when starting a new clean energy project. Previously, as many of you already know, getting a quote for going solar, installing an electric vehicle charger or making an energy efficiency upgrade frustrated providers and customers alike. In order to accurately quote the project, providers needed energy data. However, if/when the required data did arrive, it was often incomplete, old, or in an unusable format. SVCE and UtilityAPI have banished that irritating experience with their flagship pilot, SVCE’s Data Hive. Here’s how it works: solution providers simply register with SVCE to be listed in their Data Hive directory. The process is simple. It takes only a couple of minutes. So far, about three dozen clean energy providers have jumped at the chance to register. [You can register, too!] Once listed, providers can request data from their prospective customers in the SVCE service area. The customers will simply have to authorize their data to be shared. They will no longer have to provide their username and password with the utility. The SVCE Data Hive will provide instant, authorized, secure and FREE access to the customer’s standardized energy data. To be clear, this is the exact same high quality data you used to have to pay UtilityAPI to get. Only now, it’s free, thanks to SVCE’s innovative leadership in clean energy projects. Welcome to the future. Which utility is next? We know but we can’t say… yet. Stay tuned. Solution Delivers Upon Company’s Vision of Enabling Seamless Access to Energy Data While Protecting Customer Privacy
Oakland, Calif., December 23, 2018- Today, UtilityAPI announced that it is the first U.S. company to certify a Green Button Connect My Data (CMD) platform. With testing done by UL and the Green Button Alliance, UtilityAPI has proven that its platform for transacting energy data exceeds the global Green Button standard. UtilityAPI’s Data Exchange Platform now offers a certified, commercially available solution for utilities and utility vendors looking to offer Green Button Connect My Data. “UtilityAPI has been leading the market in developing secure and seamless tools for sharing energy data. It is an honor to be the first U.S. company to be certified as meeting the international standard for providing Green Button Connect to our customers.”, said Daniel Roesler, Founder and CEO of UtilityAPI. As a Certified CMD implementation, UtilityAPI's EE/DER Engagement Platform enables utilities to provide data exchange tools for empowering customers; opening a new way for engaging with Distributed Energy Resource providers and Energy Efficiency companies. With the insights gained through UtilityAPI’s standardized data protocols, utilities can continue to manage the energy economy of the future. “The Green Button CMD protocol was created to meet the consumer market’s demand for easy access to utility-held energy-usage information while ensuring customer information privacy and data security,” said Donald F. Coffin, Technical Manager, Green Button Alliance. “UtilityAPI’s Data Exchange Platform underwent testing by UL and has earned the Green Button Alliance’s CMD compliance certification, thus assuring customers it meets the security and privacy requirements mandated by the Green Button CMD protocol.” What is Green Button Connect? Green Button Connect My Data (also called Green Button Connect) is an international standard for providing third-party data access to, and secure sharing of, utility customer data; including account, billing, and interval usage data. About UtilityAPI UtilityAPI is a mission-driven software company based in Oakland, California. UtilityAPI’s data exchange tools are used to accelerate deployment and monitoring of distributed energy resources and energy efficiency technologies. Some of the top solar, storage, and energy efficiency companies rely on UtilityAPI’s tools every day. For utilities and utility vendors UtilityAPI enables seamless data access and behind the meter insights through a safe, secure, and standardized data exchange platform. UtilityAPI also works with regulators and local governments to shape effective utility data access policies. UtilityAPI is proud to be featured in the January GreenButton Alliance newsletter! Check out the full newsletter and our membership spotlight here.  |
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May 2020
UtilityAPIAll blog posts are to help UtilityAPI users connect with their customers and successfully collect their utility data. Categories
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