News

(April 3, 2015) -- Release of IEP Model Version 2.0

The GA release of the 2.0 IEP Model has been released. It reflects updates to the 2.0 Preview release resulting from initial commercial implementations which fed many constructive updates to the schemas. It also introduces an initial set of structural design changes based on evaluations of the newly released California governor's task force on PV permitting. NOTE: the portions of the IEP model that are irrelevant to Solar PV have not been advanced from the Version 1.2 release of IEP due to a lack of funding. 

(September 21, 2014) -- Preview Release of IEP Model Version 2.0

As a result of the Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative project with SolarNexus, we are pleased to announce the preview release of the 2.0 version of the IEP Model. IEP Model 2.0 implements a substantial re-design of the original schemas to enhance software vendor usability. The 2.0 preview release is substantially complete for all schemas relevant to PV system projects, enabling several software vendors to complete API services and beta tests in the field to verify IEP Model. Completion of other system type schemas will be available in the 2.0 GA release of IEP Model. 

(May 31, 2014) -- Release of IEP Model Version 1.2.1

Changes to a few schemas were introduced to better support lead gen use cases for solar PV systems.

(Mar 3, 2014) -- IEP Model to be leveraged in SunShot Initiative

SolarNexus, a key member of the IEP Model development team, has been awarded a cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative Incubator Program. SolarNexus will use the award to build and demonstrate the solar industry's first integrated ecosystems of applications using IEP XML.

(Feb 14, 2013) -- Release of IEP Model Version 1.2

The IEP Model team is pleased to release its most recent updates to the model schemas as version 1.2. A significant number of changes were made in this version based on further implementation experiences. This experience includes the population of new project leads from one application to another, and eventual reporting of entire projects that include a combination of simple energy efficiency measures with the addition of both solar PV and solar thermal systems.

Usability was the prime driver for the changes made in version 1.2. Models for elements that include a series of values, such as 12 months of energy consumption or monthly PV production were simplified to reduce repetition and verbosity. Additions to the schema were made to support information about project transactions and solar thermal systems. Other small changes were made to simplify and clarify implementations. The entire documentation package and the schemas themselves are available in the project downloads area.

(April 26, 2012) -- Release of IEP Model Version 1.1.1

The IEP Model team has made significant changes to the schemas based on lessons learned from implementation in the partners' existing software tools. The model and schema documentation have been updated for IEP v1.1.1. The entire documentation package and the schemas themselves are available in the project downloads area.

(April 14, 2011) -- Announcement of First Public Release of IEP Model

The growth of the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries have led to a wide range of websites and software tools for both consumers (homeowners and businesses) and service providers (contractors). Consumers can leverage tools that recommend energy efficiency measures (EEMs) and renewable energy projects, identify qualified contractors, coordinate contracting and purchasing, as well as manage implementation and post-project analysis and review. Service providers list services with these sites, and are adopting tools to automate their business processes to market, bid, contract, and manage projects. However, there are currently no established standards by which all of these websites and tools, for both consumers and service providers, can readily share information about customers, projects, products and services.

The IEP team has been funded by the CPUC’s California Solar Initiative (CSI) to develop an Integrated Energy Project (IEP) Model to standardize and integrate the data underlying these processes. The IEP Model introduces a common language to project stakeholder software applications – it provides a comprehensive, standardized definition of an EE/DR+PV project, as well as how stakeholders can communicate between each other about that project. This will simplify and streamline the process, reduce time and costs for both the consumer and contractors, produce a better ROI for both, and remove a key market barrier for the adoption of both EEM’s and solar energy.