Viewing Your Usage

On several Eversource pages, I saw a link to "View Usage". Having tracked utility innovation in data collection, analysis, and visualization, I was excited to see what I could do with my electricity consumption data.

First, a false start. Clicking on any of the "View Usage" links takes me to an overview of the Green Button program. Thinking as an average user, do I care what the program is called or that it came out of Barack Obama's administration? No, I really don't.

I also note that this page tells me I will need my account number and zipcode. This is odd and annoying because I'm already logged in, but as I click through beyond this screen, it turns out I actually don't need to re-enter this info. Fine, but get your story straight, Eversource.

I'm taken to a table of my consumption and payment by month - not particularly insightful as this is the base amount of data I get in the basic bill view to begin with...

A-ha! There's a link to download my data as an Excel file. Surely this will give me an awesome spreadsheet that I can manipulate with my big data wizardry.

Nope, just the same table of monthly data, in Excel form.

In the end, the "View Usage" option is entirely useless. It shows that Eversource is not making worthwhile use of its deployed smart meters, and it is very annoying that the website seems to advertise this feature of additional data, when in fact no additional data is avaiable. More important than any raw data, there is absolutely no insight provided about my usage, and only generic tips for improving energy consumption.

The Eversource experience, ladies and gentlemen.