How investing in APIs enables new climate solutions

To the average consumer, electricity is effortless. Flip a switch and there is light. Plug in a device and it will charge. The interface to our electric grid is simple and reliable.

But operating and maintaining the physical infrastructure of the electric grid is anything but effortless. An orchestration of power lines, load balancing, and other complexities make our grid a true engineering feat. And the data behind the electric grid is no less complex. There are hundreds of utilities in the US providing Americans with electricity. Each one of them interfaces with their customers in their own way. Some provide electric or gas services, while others provide both. If a state is deregulated, energy consumers may be able to select an energy supplier. In some parts of Texas, consumers do not have utility accounts at all, just an energy supplier. These are just some of the variables that exist amongst utilities. Building a consistent interface for accessing data from hundreds of utilities isn’t easy — it’s a full-time business.

Historically, energy markets have been a black box. What’s the cost of power on the grid at a given time in a given utility? How much energy is a customer using? How clean is the energy mix? Without access to utility data, it’s impossible to know and impossible to build green technology that scales across utilities and energy markets.

That’s where investment in APIs matters. These two-way connections are the building blocks enabling the renewable energy transition. The energy industry has been slow to adopt them so far, but that’s changing as it becomes clear that investing in APIs can save a lot of time and money on integrations with each and every utility.

APIs make it possible to scale climate solutions

Climate solutions are about scalability. Toss a can in the recycling bin, that’s great. Take the bus instead of driving? Awesome. But the climate crises can’t be solved unless the world’s population is aligned in meaningful action. Democratizing access to utility data allows tech to offer climate solutions to people at scale.

That’s why my team at Arcadia invests in our Arc APIs — so that climate tech engineers can focus on innovation to reduce carbon emissions instead of on tedious utility integrations. Arc’s goal is to optimize the time and energy spent on the climate fight by building a data layer that can be extended into unique applications.

We’ve spent years building the software and the relationships to cover every major utility and almost all residential energy consumers in the US. Our engineers have prioritized documentation and developer-friendly tooling around Arc’s offerings, including webhook integrations, our demo application, a climate dashboard, sandbox environment, mock utility credentials, CI/CD support, and more.

The result is a foundation of APIs that I hope can serve as the building block for tech innovations in the energy space. Integrating with Arc makes accessing a customer’s utility data as effortless as flipping a switch. Simply submit a set of utility credentials for an Arc-supported utility and you will have access to our suite of API modules:

Plug

Arc’s baseline API offering is Plug. Plug provides up to 24 months of historical utility statements as well as interval data on a consumer’s electric usage. If the utility account is active, Plug will alert you to new utility statements as they become available. Having access to this sort of utility data could allow for sizing solar systems for an individual or building data models based on aggregate utility data, as just a few examples.

Spark

Spark provides data and services around electric tariffs. For those unfamiliar with the concept, think of an electric tariff as a price structure or rate. Tariffs can be a fixed rate or variable. With Spark, Arc can determine the tariff for a utility account. Having this type of utility data opens the door to some unique features, including smart charging schedules and charging cost calculations for electric vehicles. The Spark module also leverages a rate engine that can simulate the cost and savings of emission-reducing technologies like rooftop solar, heat pumps, etc.

Bundle

Paying a monthly electricity bill is a standard for most homeowners and renters. The utility has owned this experience — until now. With Bundle, your business can own the utility bill, add custom charges, and act as the customer’s energy liaison all while Arc handles the billing behind the scenes.

Engineers have the greatest impact when they use the right tools for the job. Building on top of the Arc platform means that instead of investing time and money on utility integrations, engineers can build technology that scales across utilities and energy markets. As an engineer here at Arcadia, I believe that Arc can act as a building block for innovations in climate tech that make a real difference. We are proud to build the foundation for climate tech innovators, and we’re excited to see the ways our Arc customers will use our APIs to fight for our climate. That’s where the real energy revolution will come — when developers make their own combinations of APIs to create products and solutions that we can’t yet imagine.