The past few years have, by anyone’s measure, been turbulent for the energy sector. The war in Ukraine, for example, has led to significant price fluctuations and supply disruptions. Global energy demand in 2024 surged by 4.3%, almost double the annual average of the past decade.

Meanwhile, there continues to be a strong emphasis on moving toward cleaner and more sustainable energy sources — without much appetite from the typical consumer to foot the bill for that transition. And that’s not to mention the impact of AI on energy demand, with IEA forecasting that global electricity demand from data centers could double by 2026.

In other words, we’re using more power than ever but want it cleaner and cheaper than ever.

Real-time management, efficiency, and optimization are increasingly seen as vital within the energy sector. When it comes to the digitalization of this space, APIs are doing a lot of heavy lifting around improving interoperability, integration, and communication between services. They may just hold the keys to a more sustainable future.

Below, we’ll cover the role of APIs in digitalizing the energy sector, how API-first solutions like energy management systems (EMS) are being deployed, and some of the ways homeowners and business owners are leaning on APIs to better manage energy consumption.

How APIs Are Reshaping the Energy Sector

Observability has always been a big hurdle in the energy sector, since data must be collected from disparate sources (such as “dumb” meters, smart meters, IoT devices, and energy management systems). It makes sense that energy companies are increasingly looking to APIs to streamline the observation and provision of energy.

E.ON is a company worth highlighting here, with a suite of products under the umbrella of E.ON One. They describe themselves as “the digital enabler of the energy sector” with a “growing ecosystem… [offering] the possibility to easily combine and integrate diverse digital solutions.” In addition to first-party solutions, that ecosystem integrates products from companies including envelio, Lemonbeat, elvah, and gridX. We’ll revisit the latter of these in more detail later.

E.ON’s Optimum is a cloud-based Energy Management System that uses APIs to collect data from connected devices, smart meters, and asset management solutions to predict energy usage. Depending on subscription level, it can be used to compare energy consumption to previous periods, detect load peaks and evaluate them in automatically created tables, forecast consumption, automate target-based anomaly detection, and more.

Government bodies like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) are also using APIs to improve observability, albeit in a different context. EIA, for example, offers APIs that cover state-level electricity data, capability, and hourly operating data detailing demand and demand forecasts, among various others.

NREL, meanwhile, provides APIs that include information about utility rates via OpenEnergy Information (OpenEI) and programmatic access to their REopt tool, which is used to optimize energy systems for buildings, communities, microgrids, and more. Suffice it to say, the tools are there for energy companies who want to use APIs to connect tools and services together.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that with around 3,000 electric utility companies in the U.S. alone, the extent to which providers are actually engaging with APIs varies considerably.

Smart Meters, a Cautionary Tale

If much of the above has a commercial feel, with many of the tools referenced focused on grid management and utility providers, APIs are shaking things up on the consumer side as well. For an example of this, we need look no further than the U.K.’s rollout of smart meters.

Through their use of two wireless networks — HAN (Home Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) — SMETS2 smart meters share usage data frequently with suppliers, connect to In-Home Displays (IHDs) that show consumers information about energy usage in their homes in close to real time, and allow for remote adjustments by suppliers without engineer visits.

Their rollout has been bumpy, to say the least. The first generation of smart meters (SMETS1) was tied to individual suppliers like British Gas, EDF, and ScottishPower. If you switched to a new supplier, your smart meter would turn dumb, and your new supplier would have to replace it. (Some negative sentiment toward smart meters in the U.K. lingers from the SMETS1 days).

Now, smart meter data is centrally managed by the DCC (Data Communications Company). The DCC provides APIs that allow authorized organizations to send and receive meter data. As a result, with SMETS2, switching providers is as easy as changing access rights. IHDs continue to operate seamlessly, with limited downtime during switchovers.

Before the introduction of IHDs, consumers had to use third-party devices like the Hildebrand Glow or the ivie Bud to monitor their consumption through apps or via APIs early on. While smart meter penetration in North America has ramped up in recent years, IHD adoption hasn’t yet become commonplace.

Although U.S.-based companies like Emporia and Sense are doing similar things to Hildebrand and ivie with energy monitors, smart devices, and apps, neither currently has an official API. We might yet see a push for more open data, managed by a U.S. equivalent to the DCC.

Back in the U.K., Octopus Energy launched Agile Octopus in February 2018. This dynamic pricing tariff is based on half-hourly wholesale energy prices, enabling customers to take advantage of free (or even negative!) energy prices. In 2022, they launched an API and hosted a hackathon to go along with it.

The Agile API has since been used to create everything from Apple Watch apps for tracking the tariff and tariff cost calculators for predicting savings to homebrew Home Energy Management Systems — not to mention automating electric heating and electric vehicle charging.

It’s a tantalizing glimpse of how open data might foster healthy competition between energy providers in the future. It demonstrates how eager API consumers are to create interesting tools that can save money, forecast energy usage, and reduce the load on energy networks.

Smart Tech, Smarter Problem Solving

Legacy modernization represents a significant hurdle in the energy sector because those who maintain, say, an energy grid can’t simply slap up a “closed for renovation, back in two weeks” sign. Whether planned or unplanned, outages are incredibly unpopular and should not be relied on as part and parcel of the upgrading process.

Fortunately, that doesn’t need to be the status quo here. Writing about the need for standard APIs in the built world — a term used to describe human-made environments that provide the setting for human activity like working, walking, and living — Bill Doerrfeld reports the following:

“The answer isn’t to hastily rip out and upgrade old hardware — old equipment like AC units and elevators were built to last 50 years or more and could be functioning seamlessly. Instead, this is another area where REST APIs are set to accelerate by uniting legacy integration software and disparate hardware with a standard layer.”

We’re also seeing that process — integrating smart technology rather than ripping everything out and starting from scratch — in the energy sector. Take gridX (previously mentioned above) and its gridBox, which can be installed on-site in less than 10 minutes, as an example.

gridBox connects to XENON to enable intelligent grid management via modules including Grid Protector, Energy Optimizer, Peak Shaver, and Tariff Timer. Information can be visualized via a web app, mobile app, Cloud Connector, and, yes, an API. It’s the sort of technology that represents a path to a more observable future, without the need to completely reinvent the wheel.

There’s an interesting case study on the gridX blog about how similar technology has been deployed in Germany to facilitate home energy management systems using APIs that’s worth reading to see what this sort of thing might look like on a smaller, domestic scale.

According to a 2022 Utility Dive article, fewer than 3% of U.S. smart meters provide tangible benefits to customers. Like U.K. consumers in the early days of smart meters, energy consumers in the U.S. may need to turn to third-party devices and/or APIs to get the best results.

Cheaper Energy, Greater Efficiency, More Transparency

APIs are rapidly emerging as critical tech in the energy sector. They’re shaping the way both companies and consumers approach energy consumption, facilitating things like:

• Modernization: allowing piecemeal upgrades with minimal disruption
• Data exchange: between diverse data sources (such as IoT devices and sensors)
• Greater transparency: for consumers looking to get the best deal
• Improved observability: a driving factor in sustainable consumption

In the U.K., in the case of Octopus Energy, the provision of programmatic access and open data is a legitimate selling point for savvy consumers. In Europe, E.ON’s willingness to engage with APIs has established the company as a leader in sustainability and future-proofing.

If it doesn’t feel like anyone has yet taken quite the same leaps in the U.S., that may just be a matter of time. Companies like Electricity Maps and Grid Status — granted, the former is actually based in Denmark — are already doing interesting things with APIs. It’s not difficult to imagine wider adoption of such technology as energy consumers look to the future.

Factors like geopolitical conflicts, the rise of AI, wider adoption of electric vehicles, and so on make it difficult to predict what the future of the energy sector will look like. But two things are certain: the drive toward greater energy efficiency will undoubtedly continue, and the general public will still want lower energy bills. As we’ve seen above, APIs could be key to both.