by Brianna Crandall — May 4, 2012—As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to help American families and businesses reduce their energy costs, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched the Utility Data Access Map tool, an interactive Web platform that enables electric utilities across the country to show customers, in a simple way, the data they can access on their electricity use. The tool can be particularly helpful for facilities and energy managers working to reduce their buildings’ energy use and costs.
Many consumers say they do not have enough data or are not aware of the data they can access to make informed decisions about energy efficiency measures they could take to save money, notes DOE. Among those who do have access to their data, some reportedly lack the ability to share it with service providers who might help them identify energy savings opportunities and verify savings once improvements have been made.
The Utility Data Access Map tool provides “crowd-sourced” maps in user-friendly formats based on information gathered from electricity providers nationwide. It highlights local access to electricity data and allows consumers to compare their electricity data access to others in their state and across the country.
The data access maps display different features of consumer electricity data including the time period and timeliness of data—informing consumers, for example, whether their utility supplies same-day electricity use information—and the extent to which the data can be shared. The effort is intended to help consumers better understand their energy use and to provide new ways to compare which local utilities are adopting “smart grid” technologies.
The Utility Data Access Map can be found on the Energy Department’s OpenEI Web site, an open, collaborative system managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that enables widespread sharing of energy information, including data, tools, models, and other digital resources. The site provides consumer tips for visitors to learn how they can maximize energy savings based on the information access currently offered by their electricity company.
The Energy Department has received responses from more than 500 participating utilities, and is currently soliciting responses from local utilities across the nation to provide additional data for the Utility Data Access Map tool.
