According to the executive summary of the National Broadband Plan, one of the FCC’s six long term goals for broadband is:

• To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

In addition, the executive summary gives three recommendations on the intersection of energy and broadband: The U.S. should modernize the electrical grid “with broadband, making it more reliable and efficient,” use broadband to improve the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the information technology industry, and leverage broadband to unleash “energy innovation in homes and buildings by making energy data readily accessible by consumers.”

The FCC’s attention to making consumer energy data readily available and accessible will warm the hearts of the variety of startups and web firms looking to build businesses and innovation around home energy data. This is a growth area, Google has even released an open energy tool, PowerMeter, which can link to certain utility providers information and certain energy monitoring devices.
In January the FCC Energy and Environmental Director, Nick Sinai, said that the FCC’s National Broadband Plan could look at how to reward those with strong data access policies in its grants and loan programs, and it could look at stronger moves as well, such as “national energy data accessibility legislation.”

Sinai said that the FCC’s National Broadband Plan could also look at how to promote open standards and commercial networks, how to use policies to encourage utilities to provide their customers with real-time open access to energy data and potential ways to help the smart grid become a reality sooner. Main page text goes here...