Green Button Data, Explained

Your utility records your usage every 15 minutes. A monthly bill compresses 35,000 readings into one number. Green Button is how you get the other 34,999 back.

Your electric meter doesn't record a monthly total. It records your usage every 15 or 60 minutes — roughly 35,000 readings a year. Your bill then compresses all of that into a single number and throws the rest away.

Green Button is the national standard that lets you get it back. It exists because of a 2012 White House initiative, and it's now supported by most major utilities in the US and Canada.

Why the resolution matters

A monthly total tells you *how much*. Interval data tells you *when* — and when is where nearly all the actionable information lives.

Two households with identical 900 kWh months:

• Household A uses most of it between 4pm and 9pm. On a time-of-use plan they pay a large premium for the privilege.
• Household B has a 900W always-on load humming 24/7 and barely uses anything consciously.

Same bill. Household A should shift their timing; household B should go find whatever is running constantly. Advice aimed at the other one is wasted. A monthly total cannot tell them apart. Interval data separates them instantly.

Interval data is also what makes rate-plan comparison meaningful. Pricing a plan against a monthly total requires assuming a usage shape; pricing it against real intervals uses your actual one.

The two flavors

Download My Data gives you a file. You log into your utility, request an export, and get an XML or CSV covering the period you selected. Free, no third party involved, works for any utility that supports it.

Connect My Data is an authorization. You grant a specific service ongoing access to your usage, and the utility delivers it directly. Fewer steps for you, and the data stays current, but you're granting access rather than handing over a file.

Both are worth using. The file is more private; the connection is less work and stays fresh.

Getting your file

The exact path changes as utilities redesign their sites, so treat this as a map rather than turn-by-turn directions. Log in, then look for Energy Usage, My Usage, or Usage Details — and within that, a Green Button logo or a link labelled *Download My Data*.

A few things worth getting right when you export:

• Ask for the longest range offered, ideally a full year or more. A month tells you about a month; a year shows you how your home responds to weather, which is what separates a cooling problem from a baseload one.
• Choose the detailed/interval option, not the monthly summary. Some utilities default to billing-period totals, which defeats the point entirely.
• Pick electricity, not gas, if you have both on one account.
• XML if offered. The ESPI XML format is the actual standard and is unambiguous. CSV layouts vary by utility.

Expect the file to be large — a year of 15-minute data is several megabytes. That's normal.

What the file contains, and what it doesn't

It contains timestamped kilowatt-hour readings, and typically the meter and service identifiers.

It does not contain your rate plan, your charges, or your bill. Usage and pricing are separate systems at most utilities. That's why an audit built on interval data still asks for a bill or your rate plan — the intervals tell us your shape, and the bill tells us what that shape costs you.

It also doesn't reveal appliance-level detail. Nobody can tell you from the meter that your dryer specifically used 4 kWh on Tuesday. What it does show is aggregate patterns — the floor, the peaks, the seasonal response — and those are enough to find the money.

Privacy, honestly

Interval data is genuinely personal. At 15-minute resolution it reveals when you're home, when you sleep, and when you go on holiday. It deserves the same care as any other personal record.

Two practical implications. If you're handing it to a service, know what they do with it — whether it's sold, who it's shared with, and whether you can delete it. And if you're only trying to understand one year of your own usage, the download route keeps the data entirely in your hands.

On this site, a Green Button file you upload is parsed in your browser. The readings themselves are never sent to our servers — only the summary statistics computed from them.

Upload yours and see what it shows →

Frequently asked questions

Is Green Button data free?

Yes. It's your own usage data, and utilities that support the standard provide it at no cost. Neither downloading a file nor authorizing access costs anything.

Which utilities support Green Button?

Most large US utilities do, including PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, ConEd, and many others. Coverage among smaller municipal utilities and co-ops is patchier — if you can't find it on your utility's site, look for any 'download usage' or 'usage history export' option, which often produces a usable CSV even without Green Button branding.

How much data should I download?

A full year at minimum. Anything less can't show how your home responds to summer and winter, and that seasonal response is what distinguishes a cooling problem from a constant-load problem — which is the single most useful thing the data can tell you.