What Green Button means for Ontarians

What is the Green Button initiative?

Green Button is an energy initiative that allows Ontario residents to securely access energy data from 50+ utilities providing electricity and natural gas services. Green Button data — which comes directly from your utility — includes utility billing and metering data.

The goal of Green Button is to enable the exchange of data between consumers and utilities using a standardized approach in order to give you more control over your energy decisions. Better energy data should help Ontarians make smarter choices that lower their energy bills.

Two ways to use Green Button data

The Green Button initiative has two main features that help you access and use your energy data:

1. Download My Data (DMD): This lets you manually download your energy usage information from your utility’s website. The data is exported as an XML file that can be quite difficult to understand or analyze without the help of a third-party tool.
2. Connect My Data (CMD): This allows you to give permission to trusted third-party applications to access your energy data automatically. These apps can provide detailed insights, track your usage over time, and suggest ways to lower your energy bill.

Both of these options are designed to give you more control over your energy data and account information. Visit the Ontario Energy Board for more details.

How does Green Button benefit you?

While Green Button data can be difficult to use on its own, the initiative has the potential to help consumers take control of energy usage and save money. Connecting your data to Jotson or other third-party applications designed to interpret it can unlock insights on how to:

Save money by tracking energy use

Third-party applications are already in development to help you interpret Green Button data and show you how much energy you’re using on a daily or monthly basis and when you use most energy on a typical day. This is exciting because, with a clearer picture of your energy use, you can take meaningful steps to restrict energy-intensive tasks — like cooking or laundry — to times when your energy demand and costs are lower.

Choose the best electricity rate structure

In the future, apps built to interpret Green Button data could help you decide between the three electricity rates. Jotson is hard at work developing a feature to help Ontarians use actual consumption data to choose between price plans, including:

• Time-of-Use (TOU): With Time-of-Use pricing, electricity costs more during “peak” hours (when demand for energy is highest).
• Tiered: Under tiered pricing, you pay a set rate for a certain amount of energy each month, with anything past that charged at a higher rate.
• Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO): There are four ULO price periods — on-peak, mid-peak, weekend off-peak, and ultra-low overnight. You pay less for electricity used after 11 pm and a lot more for electricity used between 4–9 pm.

Read more about Ontario's electricity price plans and get tips on how to choose the best option for your household.

Get personalized energy-saving tips

Green Button makes it safe and easy to secure energy usage data with third-party apps like Jotson, which help you make sense of that information. Apps are great for analyzing your usage patterns and providing tailored recommendations on how to reduce your energy consumption.

Personalized tips can help you save money where it makes sense without requiring major lifestyle changes — whether it’s switching to energy-efficient appliances or just adjusting the time of day when you run your laundry by an hour.

How secure is Green Button data?

The Green Button initiative places a strong emphasis on protecting your personal information. You have full control over your data and whether or not to share it with third-party apps. You can also revoke access at any time. This ensures that you remain in control of your data while taking advantage of tools that can help you save on energy costs.

Also, if you choose the Download My Data option, the XML file shouldn’t contain any identifying personal details — no addresses, account numbers, or meter numbers — just usage information. You can upload this data into a compatible third-party app or provide it to contractors, like a solar installation company, without worrying about any data being compromised.

How to get started with Green Button

Getting started with Green Button is easy:

1. Check with your utility provider: Confirm that your utility offers Green Button access. Most major providers in Ontario were required to adopt Green Button capabilities by November 1, 2023, but some exceptions apply. For example, small utilities without smart metering infrastructure aren’t required to implement the Green Button standard.
2. Access your data: Use the "Download My Data" feature to manually retrieve your energy usage information, or authorize a third-party application through the "Connect My Data" feature for automatic data access. Because Jotson is fully integrated, you can authorize your utility to provide automatic data access directly within the app.
3. Use apps for analysis: Connect your data to apps like Jotson to spot patterns in your energy consumption behaviour and make cost-saving decisions. You can learn more about Green Button’s “Connect My Data” feature from the Green Button Alliance
4. Monitor and adjust usage: With the data provided through Green Button and the insights from third-party apps, you can start to make small adjustments to your energy habits — finding new ways to reduce your usage and lower your bills!

Take charge of your energy usage

Green Button gives you access to your energy data to better understand your energy usage and make informed decisions about how to save on electricity and natural gas bills.

With easy access to your energy data, you can identify patterns, adjust your habits, and take full advantage of programs that can help you save money. It’s a simple step that can have a big impact on both your wallet and the environment.