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10.11
The Green Button Challenge: Making Smart Grid Consumer Friendly
By IEEE-USA Staff
In 15 Sept. remarks to more than 1,000
Smart Grid leaders gathered in Washington for GridWeek 2011, U.S. Chief Technology Officer
Aneesh Chopra challenged the Smart Grid
community to innovate a “Green Button” that
would empower consumers to better manage their
energy usage.
The “Green Button” concept is
modeled on the “Blue Button,” developed by the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs with the
assistance of the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation and others to provide veterans with
“one-stop” access to their electronic health
records in formats that are easily exportable,
printable and downloadable without requiring use
of special software. Since its release, the
Blue Button has been widely adopted by Medicare,
the Department of Defense, and private sector
health care organizations.
Chopra asked the audience to
consider: “How can we safely and securely
provide customers electronic access to their
energy information, thereby supporting the
continuing development of innovative new
products and services in the energy sector?”
According to Chopra, the Blue
Button model shows how open collaboration
principles can quickly empower consumers. By
building on that model, using Smart Grid
standards, and emphasizing multi-stakeholder
corporation, a focus on ‘ease-of-use” and an
emphasis on a 'lean start-up' model, Chopra told
attendees that there would be huge opportunities
for consumer-serving innovations related to
energy data and Smart Grid.
In a related White House blog
posting, Chopra noted “consumers should have
access to their energy usage information. It
should be easily downloadable and in an
easy-to-read format offered by their utility or
retail energy service provider.”
He added “with this information
at their fingertips, consumers would be enabled
to make more informed decisions about their
energy use and, when coupled with opportunities
to take action, empowered to actively manage
their energy use.”
Moreover, Chopra offered that
making this information available in simple
standard formats “will help spur innovative new
consumer applications and devices from
entrepreneurs, big companies, and even
students. Imagine being able to check your air
conditioner from your smartphone or having a
clothes dryer that saves money for you
automatically during critically hot days or
simply getting some helpful customized hints on
how best to save energy and money in your house
or apartment.”
Summarizing his challenge,
Chopra stated “through a collaborative effort,
we can build an open-reference implementation of
a Green Button, based on national standards for
the smart grid. If the health industry can work
together through Blue Button to make this world
a better place, then the energy industry can do
so through Green Button. Let’s get to work.”
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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