Last week, the Texas market became the second one to go live with a smart meter data exchange.  Two years ago, Ontario, Canada, implemented its centralized MDM/R (Meter Data Management/Repository) to serve all 93 utilities in the province with MDM services and act as a centralized data exchange.

In its “soft launch,” the Texas portal began accepting 15-minute interval data from all 710,000 smart meters already installed by the four large investor-owned Texas distribution utilities, which include CenterPoint Energy, Oncor, AEP-Texas, and Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP).  Data are collected and updated daily.  Most of the meters online are from CenterPoint and Oncor (recall that in December, CenterPoint became the first utility in the world to begin providing residential interval data for wholesale market settlement).

When additional features of the portal go live shortly, retailers will be able to use the portal’s API (application programming interface) to extract data for their customers and present it on the retailer’s website.  Consumers will also have the ability to designate one or more authorized recipients to receive their metering data, potentially including retailers who would like to make special offers based on the actual data.

For consumers in Texas, the promise of smart meters is steadily becoming a reality.