Orange Button℠ Kickoff Meetings in San Francisco

Improving the exchange of solar data is important to the energy industry. One only needs to study the brief history of the Orange Button program to see the enthusiasm of solar energy experts. The initiative is only a few months old, but it already has some 330 participants, more than 70 of whom met in San Francisco on July 13 and 14 for the Orange Button Kickoff Meetings.

SGIP is managing stakeholder engagement, strategy, and program evaluation for Orange Button, which kicked into high gear in San Francisco on July 13^th and 14th. The five Orange Button Requirements Working Groups gathered in their first face-to-face meetings to craft market requirements for solar data exchanges between systems/parties that will reduce costs.

Orange Button is part of the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative, —a collaborative effort to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by the end of this decade. The attendees on the first day of the Orange Button Kickoff meeting were able to meet the SunShot Initiative awardees including: SGIP with partner SEIA, SunSpec, Alliance, kWh Analytics, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). DOE representatives reviewed Orange Button program and facilitated a question and answer session.

The next day was filled with Orange Button Requirements Working Group meeting for the Deployment, Financial, Real Estate, Solar O&M, and Grid Integration working groups. The objective of each of these meetings was to define the solar market requirements for the solar data exchange.

Orange Button Working Group facilitators from SGIP included: Sharon Allan, President and CEO, Aaron Smallwood, Director of Technology Operations and PMO for Orange Button, and Mohammad Rahman, Technical Program Manager. Other facilitators included Mike Mendelsohn, Sr. Director SEIA and Aaron Snyder from EnerNex. Speakers for the working group sessions were Sarah Kurtz from NREL, who addressed the Grid Integration and Solar O&M working groups about the IEC 61724 standard, Matthias Heinze from TUV Rheinland Group who also discussed the IEC 61724 standard and Justin Baca, Vice President, SEIA, who gave a solar industry update to the Financial working group.

“The Orange Button Working Group meetings were a success, and represent another milestone in the short but impressive history of Orange Button.  We’re very pleased with the initial interest, energy, and participation. We’re also looking forward to new participants joining Orange Button and working with us to shape requirements for the solar data exchange.” said Aaron Smallwood.

Moving forward the Orange Button requirements groups will continue the work they started in San Francisco of defining requirements for developing the solar data exchange.

To learn more about Orange Button, click here.

To learn about the SunShot initiative, click here.