December 2019
Welcome New Members!
Green Button News & Updates
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Green Button Alliance Announces Results of 2020 Board of Directors Election

The Green Button Alliance has concluded its fourth annual Board of Directors election and is pleased to announce the addition of two new board members. Jean-Sebastien Dorais, VP, Business Development, Logical Buildings was elected by the GBA's Participating Membership to serve in a two-year seat and Mark Gilbreth, Chief Technology Officer, Agave Systems was elected to serve in a one-year seat. The GBA welcomes its new directors who will join GBA’s Board of Directors  on 01 January 2020!
Green Button Energy Data Streamlines Energy Management and Reporting for Commercial Buildings

An increasing number of U.S. states, cities, and international jurisdictions are implementing, or considering, policies that require large commercial and multi-unit residential buildings to collect and report energy consumption and benchmark building performance. Easy access to accurate energy-consumption data is essential in order for building-energy managers to understand and manage building-energy usage, drive efficiency programs, and meet increasing mandates for reporting building-energy consumption.

Green Button Connect My Data— the industry’s secure energy data access and sharing protocol— is designed to enable facility managers to access and collect timely, whole-building, energy consumption, generation, and billing data in a consistent format. Green Button methods ensure data integrity and accuracy, eliminate the need for manual data entry, and simplify the data collection-and-reporting process across multiple buildings and utilities.

Do You Know?

  • The Green Button UsagePoint metering capability enables energy managers to link multiple-meter energy usage with location to identify individual buildings; streamlining energy reporting for multiple consumption points.

  • The Green Button Summary Billing capability enables utilities to provide billing information; such as energy usage and administrative fees. 

Leveraging utility-provided Green Button energy data, energy managers can make adjustments faster, can securely share the data with solution providers for further analysis, and can more-easily and accurately report the data for portfolio management, compliance, or sustainability programs.

Member companies of the Green Button Alliance that are serving the commercial and industrial building sector with feature-rich, energy-management platforms and solutions that optimize building performance and engage customers include Logical Buildings, ZOME, and Agave Systems . Market research is available from the Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) .

Member Spotlight
Agave® Systems' data-analysis platform combines software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools and on-site control systems to enable commercial and industrial (C&I) customers to manage and optimize their energy usage. Agave’s platform brings utility-rate information together with energy-usage data to provide C&I customers with metrics, trends, and notifications that support informed decision-making.

“Agave’s platform and tools integrate all utility systems in one place to enable building owners and managers to manage and optimize their energy spend, reduce costs, and improve operations resiliency,” said Steven Acevedo, Founder & CEO, Agave Systems. “Agave’s solution efficiently delivers a proven, lasting energy management process that drives bottom line profits for customers.”

The Problem: C&I customers today face ever-changing utility tariff-rate structures and the challenges presented by these erratic charges. Unpredictable energy costs not only impact a company's bottom line but create uncertainty around budgeting and profit forecasting. In addition, demand charges can be significant—at times more than 40% of a facility's energy bill. A recent U.S. Department of Energy study indicates that in 2018, C&I energy users in the U.S. spent over $60 billion on these additional costs.

Building owners and managers lack data, which leaves them in the dark as to when and why they're being charged. Since invoices don't arrive for 45-60 days following a demand event, this compounds the issue. Without a process in place, many energy consumers overspend by blindly paying the bill.
Agave's Evolution platform brings current utility rate information together with real-time energy data, including standardized Green Button energy-usage data, to provide C&I customers with the metrics, trends, and notifications that support informed decision-making. Standardized Green Button data enable energy managers to easily utilize highly accurate whole-building energy consumption, generation, and billing data in a consistent, common format across single or multiple buildings and utilities.

Agave’s automated delivery of reliable, up-to-date energy metrics helps bridge the gap between operations and finance data to better manage energy costs and optimize plant performance. The cloud-based SaaS solution is hosted on Amazon Web Services to provide customers with secure, continuous access to their data.

Agave's solution offers users up-to-date energy cost information and allows for continuous auditing. The system provides constant feedback on equipment performance and investment payback on projects, while the open system architecture allows it to be used independently or combined with an existing Agave ® Evolution ™ and/or plant control system/SCADA system.

Follow Agave ® Systems on LinkedIn , Facebook , and Twitter .
In the Headlines
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Green Button Alliance Meetings
 GBA's Upcoming All-Member Meetings

  • The GBA hosts the OpenADE Task Force technical meetings on Tuesdays at 3:00pm EST. The next one-hour OpenADE Task Force meeting will be held on Tuesday, 07 January. GBA members and non-members are invited to attend. Visit the GBA's online calendar for logistics.

  • The GBA's monthly Green Button Co-Marketing Meetings are held the first Wednesday of the month at 3:00pm EST. The next meeting will be Wednesday, 08 January. All GBA members are invited to attend this 45-minute meeting. Participation logistics will be emailed to GBA Members. Members can also login to download the information.

  • The GBA's next All-Member Call will be held via dial-in and web on Tuesday, 21 January at 2:00pm EST. All members are invited to attend. Participation logistics will be emailed to GBA Members.

For a full listing of GBA meetings and events, p lease visit GBA's Calendar page or subscribe to our public calendar:
Upcoming Events

27 January 2020
San Antonio, Texas

28-30 January 2020
San Antonio, Texas

Engaging the Consumer
17-19 February 2020
Austin, Texas

To the Moon
30 March - 02 April 2020
Austin, Texas
Green Button Alliance
info@greenbuttonalliance.org
www.greenbuttonalliance.org

© 2019 Green Button Alliance
The Green Button Alliance (GBA) is a North Carolina nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation