Local News

Two developers from Seattle have won the U.S. Energy Department’s “Apps for Energy” competition for developing an application that helps utility customers visualize the energy they consume in different ways, such as the number of trees needed to offset the amount of energy an individual uses.

The app, called Leafully, won the Best Overall App Grand Prize and is the brainchild of a Seattle-based team, Timothy Edgar and Nathan Jhaver, both software engineers at Microsoft. Here’s a link that tells more about their project. The application also encourages users to set energy savings goals and to share their progress on Facebook.

App developers submitted more than 50 mobile and web applications designed to help utility consumers save money by making the most of their “Green Button” energy usage data, according to the Energy Department.  The Green Button program provides energy consumers secure access to their energy data online through greenbutton.org.

Applications eligible for the competition included those for mobile phones, computers, tablets, and software programs.