Obama Urged to Act to Ensure Consumers Access to ‘Actionable’ Energy Use Information

A group of 47 IT and communications companies, trade associations and environmental groups urged the Obama administration Monday to craft policies to ensure that households and businesses have access to “timely, useful and actionable information on energy use.” Giving people the ability to monitor and manage their energy use through computers, phones or other devices, would “unleash the forces of innovation in homes and business,” and help “power millions of people to reduce greenhouse gas emission,” saving consumers billions of dollars, the group said in a letter to President Obama.

The group included Google, AT&T, Best Buy, Comcast, Control 4, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Nokia, Verizon, CEA, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition, Telecommunications Industry Association, the Information Technology Industry Council, Natural Resources Defense Council, Green Electronics Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. Giving people “direct feedback” on their electricity use would trigger behavioral changes that result in “significant savings,” the group said. If all U.S. households saved 15 percent on their energy use by 2020, it would amount to greenhouse gas savings equivalent to taking 35 million cars off the road, apart from saving consumers $46 billion on their energy bills, it said.

The government should act to make sure that consumers have the ability to see their energy use “in a manner that will enable them to discover the sources and causes of their consumption” and have information on electricity pricing and pricing plans, the group said. Consumers also should be provided information on the generation sources of the electricity they are using, the group said. Technologies exist to make these goals possible, they said. But “clear rules” are needed on “consumer access to information, incentives to promote the deployment of technologies, including cost recovery” for utilities, it said. “Robust privacy and security protection for consumers and their information is essential,” it said.

The White House should lead an effort in partnership with federal agencies, states, industry and others to devise “best strategies, programs and policies needed to meet the goal of providing consumers access to energy information,” the group wrote. The EPA, Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should be asked to “add the availability of timely, useful and actionable energy information to consumers as a criterion for consideration in rulemaking, grants and other programs related to end use electricity distribution and energy efficiency.” The group urged Obama to convene a White House summit to discuss how consumers could be provided with “better information and tools for managing their electricity use.”