California Initiative Provides Consumer Access to Energy Data

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Simple Energy announced its integration with the Green Button, a White House coordinated initiative that will provide more than 10 million PG&E, SDG&E, and Southern California Edison customers with their personal energy data and allow them to view the information across a variety of platforms. The Simple Energy Customer Engagement Platform transforms this personal energy data into an online game that allows users to compete with friends and win prizes for increased energy efficiency.

Households in the service territories of California's three largest utilities can now download their energy usage data online with one click, accessing the past year of their energy data. This data can then be seamlessly integrated with the Simple Energy platform, which helps users to understand their energy use with actionable insights and an easy points system that scores them against their Facebook friends.

"We are excited to be able to work with the Green Button initiative to provide millions of customers across California with a social, fun and simple way of understanding their own energy data," said Yoav Lurie, CEO and co-founder of Simple Energy. "By allowing people access to their energy usage data in a meaningful way on platforms where they are already spending their time such as Facebook, we make saving energy into an easy and enjoyable experience."

Simple Energy is the first social energy application to go live to the public, with easy data uploading now available to over 15 million homes in California and Texas. The platform is available as a web application, by email and on Facebook, with a mobile application going live this month. Soon, Simple Energy will be available to more users around the country.

The Simple Energy platform normalizes customer's energy usage, allowing participants to compete with their friends across the country -- similar to a golf handicap. In addition, players can form teams in order to compete on behalf of a cause that they support, such as a school or community organization. Finally, the program follows strict privacy guidelines, comparing normalized scores among users without revealing any personalized, individual details about actual energy use.

For Simple Energy's utility partners, the portal product that allows for seamless integration with their consumer energy data comes standard with the Green Button export and download integration feature. This standard integration will allow utilities that decide to work with Green Button to instantly offer their customers a social, fun and simple way to understand their own energy data.

In addition, the Simple Energy portal product also supports third-party API integration with any outside vendors that utilities may opt to include. The Green Button uses a voluntary industry standard supported by efforts of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, NAESB's ESPI, that was developed for this more sophisticated use case.

The launch of the Green Button initiative follows the completion of an energy efficiency program piloted in San Diego, where the Simple Energy platform succeeded in more than doubling energy savings among participating residential customers during a three-month period.

"The amazing results from San Diego clearly demonstrate that the Simple Energy approach to motivating people to save energy really works," explained Lurie. "People are naturally social and they like competing to win points and prizes. This is an intuitive way for people to easily save energy."

California customers can sign up to access their energy data on the Green Button with Simple Energy today at https://www.simpleenergy.com/partners/green-button.

About Simple Energy

Simple Energy uses social game mechanics to change how people save energy and how utilities engage their customers. Simple Energy's customer engagement platform and applications combine leading behavioral science research and social game mechanics that encourage energy efficiency. Participants in Simple Energy programs compare their real energy usage with their friends and neighbors, making energy efficiency social, fun, and simple.

www.simpleenergy.com

Twitter: @simpleenergy

SOURCE Simple Energy

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