EIS Alliance Efforts Lead to "Green Button" for Consumers

MORGAN HILL, Calif., March 27, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Energy Information Standards (EIS) Alliance, created to develop a common framework for customer equipment to use, generate, and communicate energy data, has been instrumental in the development of Consumer Energy Management Systems (CEMS) products under the "Green Button" initiative.

The "Green Button" is a national collaborative project, initiated by the White House and the Department of Energy, to implement simple CEMS, using standards developed in large part through the efforts of the EIS Alliance, its members and its standards development partners.

The key standards in this effort are the REQ-18 Guideline, developed through the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) based upon CEMS use cases developed and published by the EIS Alliance, OpenADE and NAESB, and the Energy Services Provider Interface standard, also developed through NAESB, an EIS Alliance member organization.

"The most exciting aspect of the Green Button is the way that multiple vendors have leveraged open standards to fast-track prototype systems, that can be readily moved into consumer-available products," said Chris Kotting, executive director of the EIS Alliance. One example of such a device was a prototype thermostat demonstrated by EIS Alliance member Honeywell at Grid-Interop in December. The Prestige® Comfort System, an existing programmable thermostat in Honeywell's extensive comfort controls product portfolio, was modified using off-the-shelf components and open standards to access and display useful information on both energy usage and costs for the previous day, week, and month.  The system also provided access to the data and a remote display of the thermostat's status through any Web browser.

"It is exciting to see that policymakers and utilities are beginning to see what the EIS Alliance has always maintained, that the key to Smart Grid, and particularly customer engagement, is customer-owned, customer-controlled and customer-friendly energy management and information.  The EIS Alliance is proud to have played a foundational role in these developments," said Kotting.

About the EIS Alliance

The EIS Alliance is a nonprofit corporation formed to ensure Customer Energy Management Systems (CEMS) interoperability, while providing increased customer energy efficiency, and improved reliability with state-of-the-art security for the Smart Grid. The EIS Alliance is fostering the adoption, development, and compliance of global CEMS standards through collaboration, education, and marketing, while facilitating standards compliance through testing and certification programs. Members of the EIS Alliance include A.O. Smith, Aruba Networks ARUN, Coulomb Technologies, Ecotality, Generac, Honeywell HON, Johnson Controls JCI, and ParkPod. More information about the EIS Alliance can be found at www.eisalliance.org.