I recall sitting in a workshop a few years ago at a Gigaom conference with other analysts, startup entrepreneurs, and those in industry, and one of the main question about the smart grid was when all of the energy data being reaped from smart meter data would be available to third parties. This was the question because smart startups and entrepreneurs understood that there were a plethora of business models that could result from applying analytics to that data.

In a recent Gigaom post, Katie Fehrenbacher looks at how in California energy data has achieved a democracy of sorts, becoming available to anyone with a strong idea and a little VC. She profiles Ohmconnect, a startup that has managed to allow virtually everyone in California to earn money through demand response programs. Users enter their utility account information online and then lower their power consumption during peak power events, earning modest payments for doing so.

To be fair this is possible in California because of a number of aggressive regulatory measures that have coaxed utilities to cooperate. But it seems evident that residential and behavioral demand response is going to get its shot, given that energy data is opening up. Opower is due to IPO this week and Nest recently was acquired by Google. All these companies are trying to leverage data to generate payments from demand response. And with so much competition and advanced analytics, residential customers are due to become part of the energy efficiency equations for utilities.