Green Button Alliance Launched to Drive Energy Industry and Consumer Adoption of the Green Button Standard

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 4, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Green Button Alliance (GBA), a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation, today announced it has been formed to advance the Green Button initiative, and will facilitate standards-based application development, administer certification and testing programs, and create awareness among consumers to accelerate adoption of the Green Button standard. Founding members of the Green Button Alliance include London Hydro, Schneider Electric, UL, the Department of Energy (DOE), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the UCA International Users Group (UCAIug). Building upon existing Green Button initiatives, the Green Button Alliance will unite industry thought leaders in order to more-rapidly deliver the benefits of standardized Green Button technologies to consumers.

The White House-inspired Green Button initiative was created in 2011 with the support of NIST, DOE, and the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). Today, approximately 60 million energy customers with smart meters have access to their own energy data in a standardized format. The Green Button Alliance is committed to providing customers with easy, standardized access to their energy information (electricity, gas and water usage data), which will ultimately enable them to identify ways to better manage their utility consumption to save money and resources. Green Button Alliance membership is open to electric, gas and water utilities, hardware and software providers, government agencies, technology integrators and other industry stakeholders.

"The Green Button Alliance will take a leadership role in educating the industry, and will create a rich ecosystem of certified third-party applications that greatly benefit residential, commercial and industrial customers," said Barry Haaser, executive director of the Green Button Alliance. "We encourage those vendors with Green Button implementations, and the utilities adopting it, to join other industry stakeholders in this ground-breaking industry initiative as we work together to transform the way we use utility information."

Thought Leaders to Convene at "The Birth of the Green Button Ecosystem" Event

Green Button Alliance members encourage interested parties to attend "The Birth of the Green Button Ecosystem" event hosted by San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG &E) at its Energy Innovation Center in San Diego, California on February 6th, from 8:00am-1:00pm. The free event will feature industry thought leaders who will address the vision for Green Button, the latest Green Button developments, and the emergence of a young but complete ecosystem—just in time for California's ambitious statewide adoption of Green Button Connect My Data, a fully automated and secure energy usage service common across all California investor-owned utilities. For more information, and to register for the event, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-birth-of-the-green-button-ecosystem-registration-15034763382.

Green Button Alliance Founding Members

"As the Global Specialist in Energy Management™, Schneider Electric is committed to driving energy innovation and efficiency using open standards," said Greg Thompson, general manager of Utility DSM Solutions, Schneider Electric. "We believe that the Green Button standard is a tremendous opportunity for our customers, from utilities to end-users, to realize the maximum benefit of our solutions and achieve their goals. We offer Green Button support across many of our applications, including our Connect My Data utility implementations, enterprise, buildings, and consumer solutions. We are proud to be a founding member of the Green Button Alliance and its contributions to creating a more sustainable planet for all."

"As a founding member of the Green Button Alliance, London Hydro continues to underscore its commitment to increase adoption of Green Button across Ontario-based and Canadian utilities," said Syed Mir, vice president of corporate services and CIO. "We have been working with Ontario Ministry of Energy, MaRS Discovery District, and third-party application vendors to demonstrate the value of Green Button Connect My Data. Our solution leverages the OpenESPI open source reference implementation standard and cloud computing to enable our residential customers to shift high-peak usage, and our commercial customers, such as school boards, to manage energy consumption across multiple facilities and utilities."

About Green Button Standards

The Green Button Alliance will facilitate the development of standards-based applications that will drive the wide-spread industry adoption of the Green Button Download My Data and Connect My Data standards. By using Green Button Connect My Data, customers can securely provide authorized third-party service providers with their electric usage information to enable them to make informed decisions about their energy consumption. In addition, due to the use of common, standardized Green Button technology, third-party developers are able to more-rapidly create and offer products, services and applications that leverage Green Button data to help consumers better understand, manage and streamline their energy use. Green Button standards are based on the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI) standard.

Call for Industry Participation

The Green Button Alliance invites participation from all companies, organizations and stakeholders sharing a common interest in facilitating and accelerating the adoption of the Green Button standard. For more information, please visit http://www.greenbuttonalliance.org.

About Green Button Alliance

The Green Button Alliance (GBA) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation formed to foster the development, compliance, and wide-spread adoption of the Green Button standard. The GBA is an industry-led extension of the White House-inspired challenge to the electric utility industry to launch a Green Button Initiative to give consumers access to their energy usage information in a downloadable, easy-to-read and standardized format. The Green Button effort was created with the support of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Department of Energy (DOE), the White House, and the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). The North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI) standard serves as the basis for Green Button technology by providing a model for business practices, use cases, and an XML schema for the standard. For more information, or to join the Green Button Alliance, please visit http://www.greenbuttonalliance.org.

© 2015 Green Button Alliance. Green Button, GreenButton Download My Data, GreenButton Connect My Data, and the Green Button logo are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of departments of the United States of America and/or the Green Button Alliance. Global Specialist in Energy Management is a registered trademark of Schneider Electric. UL is a trademark of UL LLC. All other marks are property of their respective owners.