Governments around the world have recognised that data-sharing economies are the next building block for economic growth, and ultimately better outcomes for end consumers. We’ve seen this with the adoption wave of open banking and finance, where each week seemingly brings an announcement that another country has published its regulatory framework to open up banking and financial data. Of course this isn’t limited to just financial data; similar initiatives are happening in the energy, telecomms, transportation, retail, and health sectors.
However, these sectors are at the very beginning of their respective journeys, and at very different levels of readiness. One industry prime for opening up data sharing is the energy sector. The immediate benefits of optimising switching, grid distribution, and pricing are waiting to be realised. But one use case that would have profound effects on cutting carbon emissions actually relies on not just energy data, but financial data, too: automating emissions reporting to improve access for SMEs to green finance.
In the UK, Project Perseus is undertaking to do just that. A collective of banks, cloud accounting platforms, carbon accounting firms, and energy companies are working to bring this to life. Like any data sharing framework, the complexities of the liability model, the technical and data standards, the scheme rulebook, and the digital verification, consent and trust frameworks take time to sort. However, because open banking provides a starting template, work on this is happening at pace. In fact, it’s moving more quickly than the legislation underpinning the smart data framework that would formalise the broader, multi-sector data sharing economic model government is sponsoring.
While the energy sector is touted as the next industry to be opened up, it hasn’t yet been tapped in the same way banking and finance has. But regulators and policymakers are working to make it happen: for example, Ofgem, the UK Energy regulator, just published its consultation on the consumer consent solution as part of its broader Data Sharing in a Digital Future initiative, which will be interoperable with open banking and the long-term regulatory framework that will take shape for the UK’s Smart Data scheme.
We’re now seeing other sectors applying lessons learned from open banking in order to tap into the potential their sector data sharing will bring.
