Part 2: Utility Data Access and Market Transformation
Why better data infrastructure can strengthen customer engagement, efficiency programs, and utility strategy
If whole-building energy data is becoming part of the infrastructure for benchmarking and Building Performance Standards, utilities have an opportunity to think differently about their role in that system.
Data access does not have to be viewed solely as a compliance obligation or customer request function.
There is a strategic case for doing it well.
As building performance policies grow nationally, utilities are increasingly supporting customers who need whole-building energy information to understand, report, and ultimately improve building performance.
But the opportunity goes further.
Better data access can reduce administrative burden, improve the customer experience, strengthen partnerships with state and local governments, connect customers with efficiency opportunities, and support broader market transformation.
That changes the conversation from simply asking, “What data are we required to provide?” to asking, “What market outcomes could better data access help enable?”
From policy requirement to strategic infrastructure
Illinois’ new Utility Data Access Act offers a useful example of how this conversation is evolving.
The law does not frame whole-building data access solely as a mechanism for helping customers comply with benchmarking or building performance policies. It connects data access with a broader set of outcomes, including energy efficiency, customer engagement, building upgrades, peak load reduction, and greater value from utility efficiency programs.
That framing matters.
It treats data access as infrastructure that can support multiple utility, customer, and public policy objectives at the same time.
This is especially relevant as building performance policies expand nationally. With 16 active BPS laws and nearly 60 state and local benchmarking requirements now in place, a growing population of building owners needs to understand how their buildings are performing, identify opportunities for improvement, and make investments over time.
For utilities, that creates an opportunity to meet customers at an important moment.
The immediate question may be, “How do I get my building data?”
But the next questions are often more consequential: “How is my building performing?” “What do I need to improve?” and “What resources are available to help me get there?”
Utility data access can be an entry point to answering all three.
Better data access means a better customer experience
Utilities occupy a unique position in building performance policy.
They are often the only entities that can provide complete historical energy use data across all of the accounts serving a building. For multifamily and multitenant commercial properties, that can mean bringing together information from dozens or even hundreds of individual customer accounts.
When whole-building data access is automated, reliable, and easy to use, it can reduce the staff effort associated with manual requests and make compliance less burdensome for building owners and managers.
For building owners, that difference matters.
If data must be requested manually, assembled account by account, or repeatedly reconciled across systems, compliance quickly becomes more complicated. Owners spend time chasing information rather than using it to understand and improve building performance.
A more automated approach can turn whole-building data into a starting point for understanding performance, identifying opportunities for improvement, tracking progress, and meeting reporting requirements.
That also creates an opening for utilities to engage customers at a moment when they are already paying attention to energy use.
Connecting data access to efficiency
One of the most important themes in our 2026 discussions has been the relationship between building performance policies and utility efficiency programs.
BPS policies are designed to drive measurable improvements in building performance. For many owners, meeting those targets will require operational changes, efficiency investments, or both.
Utilities already have programs designed to support many of those activities.
That makes data access more than a reporting tool. It can become a bridge between policy-driven customer needs and existing utility offerings.
A building owner who has just benchmarked a property or learned that it will need to improve performance to meet a future BPS target may also be an ideal candidate for an energy assessment, strategic energy management program, incentive offering, or other utility service.
The better utilities understand where those customers are in their building performance journey, the better positioned they may be to connect them with the right support.
Supporting market transformation
The market transformation opportunity may be even more significant.
As BPS policies become a stronger driver of building upgrades, utilities may have opportunities to support earlier adoption, improve implementation, and help accelerate energy savings across the market.
That raises important questions about attribution.
If a building owner makes an efficiency investment because of a BPS requirement, but utility programs, incentives, technical support, or data infrastructure helped make that investment possible, how should the resulting savings be understood?
Our industry is still working through that question.
The NEEP Summit discussion this year explored how emerging attribution approaches may allow utilities to receive credit for savings associated with policy-driven market transformation. The ACEEE research adds another piece by showing that utility data infrastructure itself may help create the conditions in which building performance policies can succeed.
Where regulatory and program frameworks allow, utilities may increasingly be able to demonstrate that their role extends beyond delivering energy. Investments in data access, efficiency programs, and customer support can help influence how quickly and effectively a market improves building performance.
Stronger partnerships with policymakers
There is also an opportunity for utilities to become more effective partners to state and local governments.
Building performance policies are rarely implemented by a single organization. Local governments establish requirements. Building owners comply. Utilities provide critical energy information. Program implementers and efficiency organizations often help translate policy into action.
When those groups coordinate early, policies are more likely to reflect the practical realities of data availability and customer experience.
If data access is addressed only after a policy has been adopted, utilities may be asked to respond to requirements their systems were not designed to support. Municipal staff may have to develop workarounds, and building owners can end up caught in the middle.
Illinois provides an interesting model for where this conversation may be heading. By addressing utility data access through statewide legislation and a formal regulatory process, the state is treating the issue as something that deserves deliberate planning and investment rather than a series of one-off responses to individual building policies.
Data as infrastructure
There is no single model every utility should follow. Regulatory structures, privacy requirements, utility systems, and local building policies all differ.
But the direction of the conversation is becoming clearer.
Whole-building data access should increasingly be viewed as infrastructure.
That means thinking beyond one-time requests or individual compliance use cases. It means considering how data systems can support multiple customers, policies, programs, and market needs over time.
Better data access can support customer engagement, strengthen utility efficiency programs, improve coordination with policymakers, enable benchmarking and BPS, and ultimately help accelerate energy savings across the buildings sector.
There is still more work to do to understand how those outcomes should be measured and attributed.
But the strategic question for utilities is already taking shape.
Instead of asking only, “What data do we need to provide?” utilities can begin asking, “What could better data infrastructure help our customers and our market accomplish?”
For utilities that want to support their customers, partner effectively with policymakers, and help accelerate energy savings in the buildings sector, that is a conversation worth staying in.
Want to Learn More?
Better utility data access does more than make benchmarking easier. It can help make building performance policies possible in the first place.
Our newest paper, “Connecting the Dots: How Utility Data Access Enables Building Performance Success,” written for The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE)‘s 2026 Summer Study Buildings, looks at the relationship between whole-building energy data access, benchmarking, and Building Performance Standards (BPS).
Read the full paper and see what the research tells us!
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