In addition to the software, customers pay dearly for hardware, and for the army of Epic-certified technicians that needs to be deployed to get the system up and running.

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So if they're getting this good information from OPOWER and they see that, boy, that drafty window is costing me a couple of hundred bucks a year, they're now going to have an incentive to go to Home Depots or go to Lowes to hire a certified contractor and make the changes that will ultimately pay for themselves, improve our environment, and improve our economy.

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Tests by the Home Depot, America's biggest purveyor of FSC-stamped products, suggest that barely a third of customers would pay a premium of 2% for a certified product, not enough to green even Western retailers.

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There, consumers want to believe their wood has not come to them at the expense of the environment and will pay as much as 50% more for certified stuff.

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