How to Promote Smarter Water Use by Giving Consumers Access to Their Consumption Data

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In many parts of the United States, water is quickly becoming a scarce resource. Data-driven insights can enable utilities and consumers to manage water use better, identify leaks sooner, and discover opportunities to use water more efficiently, writes the Center for Data Innovation. To help unlock innovative uses of water data, utilities should provide consumers open access to their water usage data in a standardized format. The federal government should support this goal by encouraging water utilities to do this using the “Green Button” data standard, which has already been adopted by the energy industry to provide consumers access to their utility data.