Greenbox announced this morning that it has partnered with Silver Spring Networks to deploy an energy management platform for Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E). Greenbox's software tracks energy consumption and will use Silver Spring's smart grid infrastructure expertise to enable OG&E's platform.

OG&E will use its new software platform to provide customers with in-depth information about their own energy consumption, allowing consumers to control their costs more precisely. The system will also provide OG&E with a utility-wide view of the same data. Greenbox's web-based interface is easy to use. Creators Jonathan Gay and Robert Tatsumi were part of the team that created Flash.

Among the features Greenbox's software offers is a community comparison feature, which allows consumers to compare their energy use to other members of their communities. This feature, and others, seems likely to make energy management more popular with consumers. Greenbox won't simply send a list of numbers showing energy use to customers; it will explain that information as well as offer suggestion and comparison tools. Consumption will be analyzed in 15-minute intervals.

OG&E is a relatively small utility — it has only 765,000, only a small percentage of which will initially have access to the Greenbox platform. It's truly a pilot program, but one with interesting potential.

Image — Greenbox