ComEd is joining forces with Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, to deploy Green Button Connect My Data in northern Illinois. ComEd is among the first utilities to roll-out Green Button Connect My Data, which allows customers to authorize third-party service providers to receive direct access to their energy usage analytics via the Green Button functionality.

To help customers maximize energy savings via the Green Button Connect My Data functionality, ComEd offers Energy Insights Online, a free web-based energy analysis service that interfaces with Green Button. Energy Insights Online provides ComEd’s commercial customers a more detailed analysis of their building’s energy usage and enables third-party vendors like Schneider Electric to provide automated monitoring based commissioning (aMBCx) technology with embedded fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) analytics that accurately prioritize energy savings opportunities.

“Green Button Connect My Data, along with ComEd’s Energy Insights Online solution, provides our customers increased visibility into their energy usage, which is one of the easiest and most efficient ways we can help them produce energy savings on a large scale,” said Val Jensen, senior vice president of Customer Operations, ComEd. “As we deploy smart meters across northern Illinois, we hope to unlock even more value through data analytics that will give our business and residential customers the power to manage their energy use.”

Elmhurst Hospital is among the first of ComEd’s commercial customers to take advantage of ComEd’s Energy Insights Online and Green Button Connect My Data. Using the Schneider Electric utility interface, data is pulled from different sources including three onsite ComEd smart meters with information Schneider Electric compiles every five minutes via 13,000 sensor points within the HVAC control system. Working with ComEd and Schneider Electric, Elmhurst Hospital was able to leverage these tools, and their smart meters, with zero additional investments in hardware or software, to reduce the energy costs of their 866,000 square feet facility. 

“There is a growing awareness about the value analytics can bring to energy managers to help improve energy performance,” said Greg Thompson, manager of Smart Grid Offers at Schneider Electric. “We are pleased to join efforts with ComEd to offer customers additional energy saving products and services that utilize Green Button data.”

Green Button is an industry initiative stemming from a White House call to action for utility companies to voluntarily provide customers with easy access to their energy usage in a secure and user-friendly electronic format.

This initiative is part of ComEd’s Smart Grid Exchange, a collaboration between ComEd, entrepreneurs, technology start-ups, universities and customers to explore and design new products, offers and innovative solutions that utilize the intelligence of the smart grid.

ComEd’s sister utilities, BGE in Baltimore and PECO in Philadelphia, provide their customers with energy usage analysis through the Green Button functionality and continue to explore ways to enhance these valuable features.

For more information on ComEd’s Energy Insights Online and to access Green Button, please visit ComEd.com/EIO.