Energy: usage data.

Senator Stern’s measure would broaden how utilities deliver aggregated energy-usage data to building owners by authorizing delivery to the owner’s account in any system or tool approved by the Commission, in addition to the existing option of the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The data remain aggregated, and the delivery must occur within four weeks of a request with monthly granularity unless the Commission specifies otherwise, while building owners and utilities are not liable for third-party uses or disclosures of the aggregated data.

Key mechanisms frame how the data are delivered and used. The bill retains definitions for benchmarking, energy, and covered buildings but expands the delivery framework to permit alternative systems approved by the Commission. Under the core delivery provision, utilities must provide aggregated energy usage data for a covered building to the owner, owner’s agent, or operator, or to the owner’s account in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager or an approved alternative. For buildings with three or more active accounts, the utility must deliver the aggregated data for all customers in the building for each of the prior 12 months; for other covered buildings, delivery requires accountholder consent. The Commission would also adopt regulations governing benchmarking data delivery, the public disclosure of benchmarking results, and the processes for determining which buildings are subject to disclosure, with a threshold exclusion for smaller properties. Enforcement authority references existing remedies, and cost-recovery provisions allow utilities to recover reasonable data-delivery costs through rates, with potential reimbursements for local publicly owned utilities as part of demand-side management funding.

The bill also addresses aggregation and local flexibility. It allows the Commission to treat two or more buildings on a single parcel or adjacent parcels with the same owner and five or more accounts as a single covered-building unit for benchmarking, and to provide aggregated data for all such buildings when requested. Local governments retain the option to establish their own benchmarking programs consistent with the Commission’s framework. A separate regulatory process is anticipated for data-handling responsibilities, including who delivers data to the Commission and how publicly disclosed information is protected under privacy and public-records laws. Stakeholders—building owners, utilities, local governments, and privacy advocates—would interact within a clarified framework for data sharing, privacy protections, and regulatory oversight, subject to rulemaking by the Commission and future guidance. Potential drafting ambiguities, such as thresholds for what constitutes a “covered building” versus the data-delivery rule (particularly for buildings with intermediate numbers of accounts), would likely be addressed during regulation development and guidance.