Introducing Arc, the new technology platform here to clean up the energy industry

In 2014, Arcadia set out to make clean energy an easy choice for anyone who pays a power bill. Thanks to our technology and software, we’ve been able to connect hundreds of thousands of consumers and small businesses with high-quality clean energy options. But to accelerate change at the pace required to fight the climate crisis, we knew that we needed to think bigger — we needed to create the tech that would allow thousands of energy innovators to unlock new climate solutions.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the launch of a game-changing new technology platform for developers and energy innovators: Arc. Nearly a decade in the making, Arc’s software and APIs provide unprecedented access to the nationwide utility data and solutions you need to transform our energy system and solve the climate crisis.

Modernizing the energy system is more urgent than ever

The climate crisis is here — we see it in the increased frequency of extreme weather events, in protracted droughts and fire seasons, in the growing numbers of climate refugees. World-renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough told the United Nations that climate change is “the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced. A recent poll found that nearly 75% of people in 17 countries are concerned about the threat that climate change poses to them personally.

We know what we need to do to stop the climate crisis. First, we need to electrify everything, from our vehicles to our stoves to our water heaters. Second, we need to make sure that the energy sources generating all that electricity are clean. This effort will completely transform the way we power everything, but our 130-year-old energy system just isn’t equipped to handle the necessary changes. To make electrification and decarbonization possible, we need to turn our energy system from an analog energy network into a digitized information network.

We already have various energy solutions and distributed energy resources, from electric vehicles to smart meters to time-of-use rates. What’s missing is the connective tissue that allows those solutions to communicate with everything on the grid. What’s missing is access to energy use data. Our recently published whitepaper explores why access to utility data is key to making this transition possible. In short, data access will unlock the solutions to digitize and transform the energy system so that it meets the demands and complexity of today and can facilitate the clean energy transition needed for tomorrow.

Arc provides the digital infrastructure for the next generation of energy

That’s exactly what we want to make possible with Arc. For the first time, the platform unites unprecedented access to utility data with an integrated suite of APIs to empower energy innovators. The APIs, or application programming interfaces, are what creates that connective tissue with the grid. The data access is what allows you to create new, customer-centric energy products and services to help us electrify and decarbonize.

From EV innovators looking to help end users automate their charging to the cleanest, cheapest times to solar and storage companies wanting better ways to qualify and bill their customers to retail energy providers, smart home manufacturers, and more looking to improve the energy experience for customers and test new business models, Arc makes it easy to innovate faster and build new, climate-saving solutions.

How Arc’s suite of products works

A one-to-many solution

Arc is built on our Connect integration. Connect allows end users to securely connect their utility accounts to energy innovators. Utility bills contain dozens of data points, from customer address to rates and usage to payment history, all of which Connect captures and standardizes. It integrates with 125 of the largest utilities in the country, covering 80% of US electric utility accounts. That integration powers our four core products, which stack on top of each other to provide all the features you need in a single solution.

Plug

Once you add Connect to your app, your customers receive a prompt to log in and sync their utility accounts with the app. After they complete the flow, their account, usage, and statement data is available in seconds thanks to the Statements and Intervals APIs in Plug. With that kind of data access, you can easily qualify customers and start providing value, scale and maximize the impact of your products, and unlock a host of engagement and optimization opportunities to help customers make their energy use smarter.

Spark

The energy industry is notoriously confusing, and the onus for optimizing energy use should not fall on customers. With the advanced analytics available through Spark, you can simplify the complex utility space for your end users through automation. Our Tariff Cost and Tariff Optimization APIs make it easy to identify savings and always make sure that customers are on the most cost-effective rate or rate combination, while our Smart Charge API automates charging schedules so that customers charge their electric vehicles when energy is cheapest.

Bundle

Utility companies have long owned the market on energy payments, creating major obstacles for decentralized players in the new energy economy. But not anymore. Bundle’s APIs help break the utility monopoly on energy payments by allowing you to streamline charges for your products and services with monthly utility fees in a single, branded billing experience. This not only creates a more transparent billing experience for customers — they can finally understand all of their charges and their savings in one place — but also makes it easy for you to test out new business models.

Source

While electrifying everything and optimizing energy use are essential, it’s equally essential to ensure that electricity comes from clean power sources. Source provides you with a way to connect to high-quality clean energy sources and tools to manage carbon impact, such as Arcadia’s extensive community solar program. Arcadia is the largest manager of community solar assets in the country, with more than five Terawatt-hours of residential and commercial energy demand. Through that and our renewable energy certificate (REC)-matching program, we’ve already connected 3.7 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy.

Together, these solutions unlock the ability to drive major progress toward meeting our climate goals. Arc’s capabilities have the potential to spur innovation that could impact an estimated 155 million households and businesses and address more than 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year (estimate based on the EPA calculator for kWh to metric tons).

Our mission at Arcadia is still to break the fossil fuel monopoly and create the clean energy future. Arc is going to help us get there faster, smarter, and at scale. We can’t wait to build together.