Clarity Grid News
Insights and analysis of the electric grid, wholesale prices, and the electricity markets.
Clarity Grid Solutions Enhances its Data-as-a-Service Offering
with New Pricing Details for Energy on the U.S. Power Grid
- Clarity Grid updates the nation’s wholesale electricity prices every five minutes.
- Clarity Grid displays both wholesale and retail energy pricing data for the entire U.S. power grid, all on one platform.
- Clarity Grid breaks down customer energy bills for any zip code and any retail electric tariff in the U.S., unlocking potentially billions of dollars in energy cost savings.
HOUSTON – AUGUST 18, 2020 – Clarity Grid Solutions, inc (“Clarity Grid), is proud to promote it’s partnership with Clarity Grid’s GIS Platform is housed on top of Bing Maps, what Bing Maps publishes is what you see on our site. Like all commercial services Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc., Bing satellite image vintages vary widely, from just yesterday (if you’re lucky) to several years ago. We obviously scan all the widely available commercial services for the latest images to verify new grid construction, in addition to a myriad of other sources in our library. However, heretofore our customers had to essentially “take on faith” that the location we identify for a new PNode’s location was in fact what you would see if the satellite image was current. However, we have partnered with a new Company, Skyfi, skyfi.com to allow our customers to seamlessly transition from our Platform to Skyfi’s fulfillment center, where either existing (but much more recent) images of new PNode locations at a modest cost, or new satellite images can be ordered for future (weeks) image capture.
HOUSTON – JUNE 23, 2020 – Clarity Grid Solutions, Inc. (“Clarity Grid”), a privately held Houston-based technology company that provides energy pricing data to distributed generation developers, electric utilities and industrial energy customers across the U.S. power grid, today announced a new collaboration with Truelight Energy (“Truelight”).
“We may be a nation with more than 9,700 power plants in operation and 200,000 miles of high-voltage power lines,” said Clarity Grid CEO Kevin Hannon, “but getting an accurate picture of the full actual costs that customers pay for energy from our power grid is extremely time-consuming and difficult. We believe that incorporating Truelight’s highly accurate energy pricing detail and its unique market insight goes a long way to resolving this problem for Clarity Grid customers.
“For example, rather than accept a vague recurring line item labeled ‘pass-through charges’ that requires your organization to pay 10 cents for every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity your company uses, Clarity Grid’s data platform shows you what that 10 cents per kWh goes toward,” Hannon said.
While energy costs represent the majority of a customer’s energy bill, other independent system operator (ISO) costs, such as ancillary service charges, line losses, capacity charges and renewables costs, can significantly contribute to the customer’s total energy expenditure. “The ability for companies, and the energy brokers or retail energy providers who serve them, to see and manage or negotiate reductions in these pass-through charges and other line-item costs on their power bills can result in substantial savings,” Hannon said.
Clarity Grid’s data platform provides wholesale energy prices for more than 60,000 individual power substations across the continental U.S., referred to in the industry as nodes. Clarity Grid updates real-time electricity prices at each node every five minutes, and it displays the additional tariffs and other charges associated with each node or matching index to provide retail pricing. The Clarity Grid Data-as-a-Service platform includes wholesale and retail pricing data for the U.S. ISOs, which include California (CAISO), Midcontinent (MISO), New England (ISO-NE), New York (NYISO), PJM, Southwest and Texas (ERCOT). Clarity Grid’s collaboration with Truelight Energy allows Clarity Grid to display a graphical representation of pass-through charges. The first ISO pass-through charges to be released were ISO-NE. These are now available on the Clarity Grid platform. Pass-through charges for PJM will be released next, with the rest of the U.S. ISOs to follow.
How Clarity Grid’s Data-as-a-Service Works
The Clarity Grid platform is designed to save time and resources for customers by presenting accurate, frequently updated wholesale pricing and tariff data on a GIS-based interactive map of the contiguous United States. When users click a location on the map, they see the wholesale and retail pricing data for energy from the nearest wholesale pricing point or substation.
Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Developers Use Clarity Grid Data Both In Front of and Behind the Meter
Distributed generation project developers quickly compare the economic viability of potential project locations on a wholesale and retail basis. DER developers make data-backed decisions as to which location for a proposed battery installation, for example, delivers dispatch advantages to commercial customers, compared to alternative locations. (View video demonstration.)
Utility Companies Use Clarity Grid to Compare Rates against other Utilities and Preview Rate Changes
Utilities using Clarity Grid’s data platform have quick access to more than 3,000 distribution utilities and more than 9,000 individual residential, commercial and industrial tariffs in play across the U.S. power grid. The Clarity Grid tariff library compares the economics of two tariffs side-by-side and shows what other utilities are charging customers. (View video demonstration.)
Energy Management Teams Use Clarity Grid to Find Savings, Achieve Energy Goals
Energy management teams use Clarity Grid’s data to find opportunities to reduce or eliminate some portion of the costs they are now paying on every energy bill. Energy managers run test case scenarios to see how using different rates, switching tariffs, adding distributed generation or moving production capacity to a different location during peak demand, for example, would affect their annual energy expenditures. (View video demonstration.)
Comment from Truelight Energy CEO Mike Constantine
“Clarity Grid has made the process of obtaining current nodal pricing and hard-to-find tariffs a simple, no-hassle task,” said Truelight Energy CEO Mike Constantine. “We are very pleased to include our economic data on the Clarity Grid customer platform.”
About Clarity Grid Solutions
Houston-based Clarity Grid Solutions, Inc. has unmasked the economics of energy, both in front of and behind the meter. With quick customer access to more than 9,000 individual residential, commercial and industrial tariffs, wholesale and retail energy pricing for 60,000+ nodes, hourly (day-ahead) and real-time (in five-minute intervals), Clarity Grid’s data platform eliminates the hassle, time and costs of doing price and tariff research for commercial and industrial energy management teams, utilities, regulators, distributed generation/DER developers, the SmartGrid/DERMS platforms, energy brokers/consultants, and retail energy providers across the continental U.S. power grid. Take a tour at www.claritygrid.net.