Print
Category: Latest News

Washington, DC - The Energy Department today announced nearly $4 million for projects to increase access to solar data. Four partners will help launch the new Orange Button℠ initiative, which will increase solar market transparency and fair pricing by establishing data standards for the industry.

In order to understand the financial risk of solar energy project development, the solar energy community relies on fragmented datasets released by state energy offices and a limited number of private organizations regarding project origination, grid integration, operations, and retirement. These datasets vary widely in format, quality, and content, which makes it difficult for potential providers to have an accurate understanding of potential markets. The Orange Button project will standardize this data, making it easier to share and secure, which will ensure a more standardized and transparent marketplace.

Data for solar energy system performance and electricity production is widely used throughout the industry by developers, utilities, consumers, and financial institutions. Establishing data standards and sharing key datasets throughout the industry will reduce the cost of capital for new solar energy projects by making information about the potential performance of solar projects more readily available and easy to understand. Implementing the Orange Button standards for accessible, self-sustaining, industry-regulated data marketplaces will improve the ability of apps, software, and other websites to store and use energy data and will ensure that the evolving data needs of the solar industry are met. These data marketplaces will help the solar community to rapidly share quality data and will increase competition by improving cost, performance, and pricing transparency.

The SunShot Initiative's Orange Button project will do for solar what the Green Button project did for energy use data and the Blue Button project did for health records: simplify and standardize solar data so that state governments, customers, utilities, financiers, solar companies, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders can exchange quality data. After the Orange Button data standards are created and launched, data producers like solar companies and utilities can embed a graphic showing an orange button into their app, software, or onto their website to show data users like consumers or financial professionals that a given dataset can be downloaded in the established Orange Button format.

The awardees are as follows:

These new projects build on the work of the Energy Department's SunShot Initiative to grow markets that support solar businesses and increase solar access and deployment, making solar energy affordable and accessible for all Americans.