应用程序开发人员是忙碌的人。现在有数百个应用程序可用于PC和移动设备，无论是运行Apple操作系统，Google的Android，HTML 5还是Microsoft平台的移动或PC版本。但只知道每个问题都有一个应用程序，而且渴望并不意味着你会发现它在广泛的应用商店库存中。

然而，对于对可能有助于他们减少电费的应用程序感兴趣，通过赞助应用程序开发竞赛，能源部试图让购物更容易，然后吹捧结果。叫Apps for Energy竞争，竞争既有硕士和“热门选择”奖项类别。奖项总计100,000美元。审裁比赛的结果于5月22日宣布，而截至5月31日的热门选择投票的结果计划于6月6日揭幕。

The DOE required that each competition entry incorporate data available through绿色按钮, a standardized, industry-led initiative designed to allow customers access to their usage information in easy-to-understand form. Contest rules also required that each entry include a video that explains how the app works.

Calculating tree units

App Developers从那里拿走了它。能源五个法官的应用 - 来自政府，行业和技术部门的专业人士 - 选择了一个良好的应用程序，以获得最佳整体应用程序荣誉和30,000美元的大奖。西雅图俩的开发人员，蒂莫西埃德加和内森·雅克，决定不一定要将能源使用，以千瓦时，测量标准，虽然普通，但似乎技术干燥和摘要。Edgar和Jhaver决定在树木方面测量能源使用量 - 根据能源消耗所需的污染所需的树木数量（大概的平均身高和植物树木）的数量取决于用于作为需求的电力馈送电力的来源在一天的过程中增加和减少。

除了将绿色按钮能量使用数据转换为树木，Leafully allowsusers to view their historical usage patterns, develop strategies for reducing energy consumption, and calculate the potential monetary and environmental benefits – in terms of adding trees to the environment – of following through on those strategies.

Leafully’s developers point out that not all energy-saving strategies reduce user expenses: the premiums paid for energy efficient “always on” appliances or renewable-energy systems, for example, might take several years to recover through reduced utility bills, although the tree rewards could be impressive over that period.

Leafully userstype their Facebook login在服务的主页上验证其粗略帐户，该帐户允许它们挖掘其绿色按钮数据。Facebook还用于帮助与参与者有助于建立一个能源储蓄者社区，他们将合作能够减少能力战略，并帮助互相激励，以增加其总树价值。

Other prize winners

The Best Overall App second prize went to瓜, an energy efficiency startup based in Washington, D.C. Melon, which won $15,000 in the contest, focuses on using Green Button data to help commercial buildings achieve Energy Star performance. Melon’s app is designed to assess a building’s energy efficiency quickly, highlight opportunities for energy savings that would bring the building to Energy Star performance, and help building managers find contractors to make improvements.

VELObill由基于纽约市的软件公司Zerofootprint开发的，为应用程序提供了最佳整体应用程序第三奖，7,500美元，为用户提供简单的格式，以监控其电力使用（以及水和天然气使用），将其排名为同行，并制定改进计划。

Two winners were announced in a Best Student Apps category:wotz, submitted by a team of students at University of California at Irvine, took first place, and自我预算该项目，由案例西部储备大学和克利夫兰艺术学院开发的项目。

Wotz combines Green Button data with data the U.S. Census Bureau and the California Energy Commission, and offers users “play,” “explore,” and “challenge” activities to help them analyze the data, which can be presented as a landscape of shapes representing various levels of energy usage. Like Leafully, wotz has created kilowatt-hour equivalents, including one that equates 1 kwH with one deluxe bacon double cheeseburger, and another that equates electricity consumed between 2 and 3 p.m. to a number of MacBook Air recharges. Wotz also includes two games whose difficulty is determined by the amount of electricity used in the household the previous day. The app also allows users to share their usage findings on Facebook.

自我预算, as the name indicates, is a tool for Android smartphones that is designed to analyze Green Button data and offers guidance on how best to budget each day’s energy usage to reduce overall consumption.

建立在现有的应用策略

目前，采用能源计划应用的前景与1月份推出的绿色按钮联系在一起，目前有足够的公用事业公司的承诺，一旦服务完全实施，就在2700万户中提供可用的数据。消费者是否将采取这些应用程序不太确定。

Adoption of usage-monitoring tools offered byMicrosoft and Google, for example, was too modest to keep those initiatives alive, even though they were available for free. But some systems,值得注意的是驱动器，它提供了有关社区其他驱动者参与者的电力使用信息，因此持有自己的电力使用情况。