Case Study

Overview – EZGB, a core component of Ontario’s energy data access infrastructure, has taken a significant leap forward with the launch of its new RESTful API Pilot. This enhancement provides EZGB customers and with streamlined, secure, and scalable access to their own or their customers energy billing and meter data, enabling real-time integration with innovators, Utility Customers research platforms, AI tools, and customer-facing applications.

Background – EZGB (Easy Green Button Connector) is a transformative energy data access platform designed to simplify and standardize the retrieval of billing and metering information from Ontario’s 55+ electric and gas utilities. Developed by Screaming Power, EZGB eliminates the complexity of dealing with disparate utility systems by offering a unified, secure, and automated data pipeline. It converts raw XML Green Button data into clean, usable formats like JSON and CSV, enabling seamless integration with analytics platforms, AI engines, and customer-facing applications.

EZGB supports a wide range of use cases—from commercial building performance benchmarking and smart building automation to research-driven policy validation and customer engagement platforms. Its RESTful API, now in pilot phase, empowers users to access interval meter data, billing summaries, and tariff metadata with flexible query parameters and OAuth 2.0 security. EZGB is not just a data tool—it’s a strategic enabler for innovation, compliance, and operational efficiency across Canada and the USA.

By aligning with provincial energy initiatives and supporting sustainability goals, EZGB is rapidly becoming the backbone of energy intelligence infrastructure. Whether for enterprise-scale operations, research institutions, or AI-powered platforms, EZGB delivers measurable value through automated data delivery, real-time insights, and simplified utility interactions.

EZGB API – Technical Highlights – The EZGB API is designed to meet the needs of energy data consumers across industries. Key technical features include:

• RESTful Design: Built on standard HTTP methods (GET, POST), making it easy to integrate with web and mobile applications.
• Authentication & Security: Uses OAuth 2.0 for secure token-based access, ensuring data privacy and compliance with industry standards.
• Data Granularity: Supports access to: Interval meter data (15-min, hourly, daily) Billing summaries and line-item details Tariff and rate structure metadata
• Flexible Query Parameters: Users can filter by date range, account ID, meter ID, and utility provider.
• JSON Format: All responses are returned in lightweight, machine-readable JSON, ideal for integration with analytics platforms and AI engines.
• Webhook Support (Coming Soon): Planned feature to push updates to subscribed endpoints for real-time data delivery.

API Sample

GET /api/accountData/:id/:type?/:format?

Retrieve data for a specific child account by ID. The :type parameter is optional and can be bills or intervals (defaults to bills). The :format parameter is optional and can be json or csv (defaults to json). For more details, reach out to us at https://ezgb.ca/

Use Cases and Integrations

1.      Enerlife Consulting

Enerlife Consulting is at the forefront of high-performance green buildings. We are passionate about our clients and communities achieving unprecedented energy and environmental efficiency in their buildings. Our clients include municipalities, school boards, universities, healthcare organizations, and commercial office landlords, who use our services to design, direct and verify comprehensive programs for individual buildings and whole portfolios. Our knowledge is grounded in our Green Building Performance System™ (GBPS) which contains one of the largest databases of commercial and institutional buildings’ energy and water use in North America. For the past decade we have been tracking performance and identifying the most successful energy conservation strategies in hundreds of buildings. Our direct involvement and close working relationships with facility owners and managers, provides us with unique insight into the opportunities, challenges and best practices of energy efficiency and sustainability.

Enerlife represents BOMA Toronto and BOMA Ottawa at the Ontario Energy Board, advocating for commercial building owners and managers in proceedings where energy efficiency/transition policies are set. Enerlife’s provides:

• Quarterly performance reporting for commercial and public sector organizations
• Continuous monitoring of energy use against benchmarks.
• Energy analysis and insights into performance improvement through our own proprietary system (GBPS)

For this we are looking for:

• Reliable consistent utility data
• Automated access to data delivered on demand through the API ( no access to EZGB required)

Enerlife says “The new API enables us to streamline energy consumption data collection for our program members and update our Green Building Performance System more efficiently on a monthly basis when needed, compared to the quarterly data runs required in the past.”

2.      Active Business Services – ActiveAI

Active Business Services (ABS) is currently piloting the EZGB API to enhance their ActiveAI platform and service for their customers. ActiveAI is a revolutionary digital customer engagement platform that delivers rebranding opportunities to other parties. The ActiveAI platform delivers simplified user access for presentment and services for multi utility, multi commodity bill, meter information and analysis tools.  The API integration enables ABS to offer:

• Automated delivery of bill and meter data to end customers.
• Ability to integrate tools and features both internally and from third party services through the ActiveAI platform.
• Improved customer engagement with data driven dashboards for real-time and complex analysis.

“This API boosts transparency and empowers smarter decisions for our commercial and industrial clients.” – Michael Stedman, President and CEO

3.       BuildingAssets.ai – Turning Buildings into Intelligent Teammates with Real-Time Utility Data

BuildingAssets.ai is leveraging the EZGB API to transform buildings from passive assets into intelligent Building Teammates—active participants in their own operational and financial optimization. The API automates the delivery of real-time utility billing and interval data directly into the BuildingAssets.ai Teammates, eliminating manual processes and improving data accuracy.

With this integration, each Building Teammate gains the ability to support its own performance analysis, identify inefficiencies, and surface applicable energy incentives and rebates. This enables owners and operators to make faster, smarter decisions powered by structured, reliable utility data. Key benefits of the integration include:

• Continuous data flow from utilities, improving the speed and precision of building analytics.
• Automated matching of buildings to relevant energy rebate and incentive programs.
• Enhanced ability to monitor usage trends and identify operational savings.
• Stronger communication between buildings and management—each Building Teammate helps guide its own improvement.

“The EZGB API allows our buildings to act as true Building Teammates—equipped with real-time data to surface insights and trigger actions that improve efficiency and reduce GHG emissions.” Scott Wilson CEO BuildingAssets.ai

4.    UEnergyHub Research Data Hub – Mission:data Coalition

The EZGB API powers UEnergyHub, a North American research tool. This platform enables researchers, not-for-profits, and their collaborators to access granular energy data directly within their modeling environments. The goal is to validate the accuracy of energy data coming from utilities and establish the “source of truth” for energy data across jurisdictions.

UEnergyHub has reached two major R&D milestones and is currently undergoing full internal evaluation. The API integration has accelerated data access, enabling more agile research workflows and expanding opportunities for collaboration.

Michael Murray, President of Mission:data, said “This API extends UEnergyHub’s existing Green Button Connect integrations with utilities. Now, in addition to receiving data from numerous utilities, non-profits, universities and innovators can easily access their users’ data via API. This is exactly what UEnergyHub was built for.”

4.1  R&D Automation – Martin.ai Integration

During 2024 – 2025, UEnergyHub was leveraged to obtain authorized access to participating utilities’ customer billing and meter data. The initiative also evaluated utilities’ communication strategies and readiness to support transparent data sharing. Insights from these activities led to two collaborative research projects at the University of Nova Scotia, uniting billing experts, data scientists, energy managers, market specialists, and not-for-profit organizations.

Building on this foundation, the team is now developing a scalable, AI-powered verification platform designed to automate the validation of billing and metering data across the electricity sector. The API has accelerated early-phase testing and will substantially enhance Phase 2 R&D and external collaborator engagement by enabling faster, verifiable data exchange and automated quality-assurance workflows.

This integration strengthens data governance, increases transparency, and enhances productivity across the research ecosystem. As AI technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, the convergence of RESTful API integration positions research as a future-ready component to open the door to adaptive learning systems, automated compliance monitoring, and real-time decision support for utilities and researchers alike.

Martin Benum, Subject Matter Expert supporting the Martin.ai initiative, commented: “This API speeds up validation — helping the Martin.ai team deliver results faster and ensure data accuracy across the energy ecosystem. With MCP and AI agents emerging, we’re entering a new era where collaboration and verification can happen in real time across trusted research networks.”

Impact and Future Outlook

The EZGB API Pilot is already transforming how energy data is accessed and used across sectors. By enabling seamless integration with platforms and tools. EZGB is positioning itself as a critical data backbone for energy intelligence, operational and financial risk modeling, and smart infrastructure. The API is now available for all of our EZGB partners.

Next steps include expanding API access to additional partners, enhancing documentation, and incorporating feedback from pilot and EZGB users to refine the platform. To learn more how you can get energy data to save time and costs, see www.ezgb.ca and sign up