They aren’t shiny unicorns, but these startups shine when it comes to clean energy

http://grist.org/business-technology/meet-the-startups-that-arent-shiny-unicorns-but-theyre-going-to-save-the-planet/

"The idea behind UtilityAPI is simple. Utilities have detailed data on their customer’s energy usage that would be an asset to, say, a company trying to sell solar panels in a certain region. Utilities don’t make that data more accessible, because they’re in the utility business, not the data business. As long as each utility continues to store its data in various difficult-to-access ways, Lucas is confident that UtilityAPI can weather any competition."