USEF is a partnership between energy suppliers, network operators, electrical equipment manufacturers, consultancies and ICT companies created to develop specifications and guidelines for the energy market. Together these offerings help facilitate large-scale deployment of smart energy grids throughout the world.

The USEF Foundation* is a spin-off of the Smart Energy Collective, which was founded in 2010 by 21 companies to anticipate changes in the international energy landscape. About a year ago, the Smart Energy Collective participants set out to create a conceptual and universal framework for decentralised energy markets, based on international open standards that can be scaled and reproduced for national and local purposes and operating on a non-profit basis.

In the coming years, USEF will release an international market control mechanism as well as role descriptions for the different actors in a new energy system, from network operators through end consumers. By 2020 the foundation aims to connect 10 million end-users worldwide to USEF-compliant products, services and solutions.