Utilities and Utility Vendors

UtilityAPI reduces costs and opens up opportunities for utilities. Utilities face a growing number of requests coming from DERs, from data requests, to interconnection, to inquiries about tariffs. UtilityAPI offers industry best practices for how to host, manage, and present customer data access portals. Our solutions include a:
  • Module that enables tracking of data authorization requests
  • Green Button Plus: our Green Button solution that meets the needs of third party companies

We work directly with utilities and through utility vendors. 
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Want to learn more? Email info@utilityapi.com
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Product Sheets for Utilities and Utility Vendors

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UtilityAPI Third-Party Management and Data Sharing Platform
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UtilityAPI Green Button Connect Data Custodian

Benefits of a successful data sharing platform

Deepening the utility customer relationship, increasing customer satisfaction
When utility customers are interested in energy efficiency, demand response, or solar, the vendor needs historical energy usage data to evaluate that utility customer. Utility account holders, both residential and C&I, appreciate any reduction in friction when requesting data. Paper authorization forms and phone calls with wait times lead to lower customer satisfaction scores. UtilityAPI has been successful in reducing manual data request processes, leading to an increase in customer satisfaction. 

IT and Customer Service cost reductions
  • Call Center/Residential requests: ~A quarter (and growing) of the accounts pulled are residential. Instead of calling the Utility, solar, storage and other consultants and homeowners are using our service, reducing call volume and saving ratepayers hundred of thousands of dollars per year.
  • Account Representatives/Commercial Requests: Instead of faxing or emailing authorization forms, commercial solar and energy efficiency consultants use our service. Three-quarters of our service is for commercial data collection. For example, 750 accounts x 4 hours of processing = 3,000 hours of work. At $56/hr for a utility employee, assuming $90,000 annual salary plus 30% overhead = $168,750/month for $2,025,000 annually.
    • For example, we discussed with one utility that Property Managers, particularly affordable housing properties, require customer usage data by customer to be renewed every year for HUD reimbursement resulting in thousands of requests to utilities.  We can host a system to automate this process and provide OAuth Flow.
    • Similarly, we can provide service and auth flow for large commercial customers.  Many still do not use EDI and tend to screen scrape – which is costly for both the commercial customer and the utility.
    • Commercial customers also appreciate the ease which which they may integrate our API for evaluation, measurement & verification (EM&V) as many have not integrated with ShareMyData or similar tools

Structuring Public Purpose Programs
  • Evaluation, Measurement and Verification (EM&V) is costly and messy. We are exploring ways to provide value to energy efficiency and energy management companies, specifically reducing costs for evaluating the customer, base-lining energy usage, and measurement of the guaranteed savings.​
  • Pay for Performance Energy Efficiency: For example, under the pay for performance energy efficiency pilot recently announced, we could host the OAuth Flow for utilities and Energy Efficiency vendors allowing utilities to cost-effectively expand the program and scale faster.

Implications for the grid
When customer usage and production data is maintained over time, it has implications for advanced rate design and consequently additional value if individual installation can be aggregated.  Free flowing data between DERs and utilities means that they can share correct price signals with end use customers and help them share that data quickly and securely throughout the ecosystem – while giving the utility greater insight as to the the companies and consumers who are accessing their data.