A quiet crisis in the energy sector is building around the quality of and access to energy data in the United States.

Two distinct but related energy data issues are currently in play. The first is growing concern with the lack of up-to-date renewable energy and energy efficiency data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the federal agency responsible for forecasting energy trends.

And the second is reluctance on the part of regulated electric utilities to share energy data with others. At a time when the energy world is transitioning from fossil fuel to clean energy resources, access to up-to-date, real-world data is important to energy planning, academic research and energy policy analysis, as well as the consumer’s ability to participate in energy matters.

Federal Data is Sorely Outdated:

EIA energy forecasts are very important to researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders. Not only do these forecasts deliver a source of baseline data, they also provide a jumping off point for further analysis. And yet a June report from the trade association the Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) criticized EIA for underreporting renewable energy deployment. The report, “Competitiveness of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in U.S. Markets,” cites two examples of EIA underreporting renewable energy growth.

First, the report notes that “the installed generating capacity of solar power is likely to double between 2014 to 2016, based on market analysis that take into account actual projects in the pipeline. Yet in the EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2015 forecast, solar capacity does not double until 2026.”

The report also points to even more troubling EIA data on forecasts for wind installations: “U.S. wind installations have averaged about 6.5 GW per year from 2007 to 2014, but the 2015 (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook projects a total of 6.5 GW of new wind will be added between 2017 and 2030, less than one-tenth the average rate in recent years.

AEE authors point out that government agency underestimates like these have a way of perpetuating inaccurate projections for planning and policy purposes. Indeed, organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Solar Energy Industries Association, have all criticized the EIA’s low renewable energy projections.

Lest one think this issue only matters to data geeks and policy analysts, note that the EIA’s renewable energy data impacts energy price projections as well, making this an issue for consumers, ratepayers, and the general public alike.

This data is also critical to the growing debate currently surrounding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Power Plan. Several states are bringing court challenges to the Clean Power Plan, and cost of implementation is a central argument in many of these cases. And yet the cost of solar power generation has dropped so dramatically and quickly that they are now half of what the EIA Outlook estimates in their reports. (Note: a further complication is that EIA data tends to be behind by about a year and does not even include smaller distributed energy such as household solar PV smaller than 1 MW).

This means that even some of the EPA’s initial planning that relied on EIA data may be off the mark. Moving forward, it will be critically important to improve the tracking and publication of energy data once the Clean Power Plan is implemented. Now is definitely the time to improve the energy data system.

Utilities Are Not Sharing Their Critical Data:

The other issue is one of electric utilities not releasing energy data for independent analysis. The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) is currently considering a case that revolves around utilities’ requirements vis-à-vis distribution resource plans (DRP). Though this may at first appear like an insider’s game, the stakes are bigger than they first appear.

The basics: Independent energy producers are attempting to incorporate distributed energy resources (DERs) – i.e., energy storage, distributed generation, microgrids, et al. – into the multi-billion dollar California energy market. These third-party energy producers and products groups claim that regulated utilities are not sharing enough distribution market data critical to determine where the DERs could best be deployed.

Comments filed with CPUC by groups including the Environmental Defense Fund, the California Energy Storage Alliance, and the Independent Energy Producers are asking regulators to push the utilities to provide this data more willingly. Many observers feel that the California DRPs process is going to be the first major step in greater transparency for regulated electric utilities and that the issue of utility transparency and access to energy data by independent parties will be playing out in more and more states in the future. The case, which could influence how the issue is handled going forward, merits close attention.