Duke Energy customers in North Carolina will soon be able to tap into hourly energy usage data after a decade of pressure from clean energy advocates. (Canary Media)
What’s behind the effort? Little or no access to granular data about energy use can complicate decarbonization efforts—from households to cities.
The new plan also lets third‑party service providers (like energy benchmarking firms and smart thermostat apps) request customer data from consenting customers.
It’s all in the details: Data fees (particulars TBD) could make participation too expensive for smaller cities, startups, or nonprofits, and tight cybersecurity requirements might shut out smaller software developers.