Happy belated Earth Day! We hope you took the time on Tuesday to enjoy the great outdoors or made a plan to get outside this weekend. Perhaps you did neither and instead decided to put your reusable water bottle to use instead of grabbing another plastic bottle of water to drink from for the day. Whatever you did, we hope it made you happy because that’s part of what celebrating Earth Day is all about.
In this final post of our 2025 Environmental Sustainability blog series, we’re diving into how industries can make smarter, greener decisions using actionable RESTful web services. I know that may sound like a stretch to connect these things, but keep reading: I’m going to discuss the technology, the data sources that you can consume to impact your sustainability results, and how you can bring them together without writing any code.
Until recently, integrating external variables—like weather data, energy costs, or commodity pricing—into systems like HMI, SCADA, or MES was complex and time-consuming. But today, many of these valuable data sources are available in RESTful web services that are easy to consume and integrate into industrial automation platforms.
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight structured text format for data exchange, while RESTful APIs deliver that JSON data set using standard HTTP/HTTPS methods. The combination allows external variables to be seamlessly brought into your industrial control systems, providing high-level visibility that drives operational efficiency and environmental responsibility.
Whether you’re in manufacturing, oil and gas, energy, or any sector where outside influences affect your bottom line, having timely access to this data supports better decision-making and sustainable operations.
Power and Utility Usage Statistics
Understanding your facility’s energy usage patterns is crucial for both cost optimization and carbon footprint reduction. Researching peak and non-peak energy usage hours in your area can help reduce higher operating costs. Perhaps it's smarter to shut down operations during peak hours or to operate at different capacities depending on the peak and off-peak usage times?
Your organization may have also looked at Energy Cycling to help lower operating costs. Energy Cycling focuses on strategies for reusing and recovering energy and minimizing waste, all the while improving efficiency. One example of Energy Cycling is using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems, which allows heat waste to be captured and utilized.
Specific sources for energy pricing information will largely be dependent on the location of interest and whether you require current pricing information or historical data.
The US Energy Information Administration provides a very useful API exposing a variety of information such as average retail price of energy by state at the monthly, quarterly and annual levels in cents per kilowatt-hour. Current pricing information, when available, is typically provided by your specific energy provider. Access to this data has become more and more common over the years as more utility providers recognize the need for energy conservation.
Commodities Statistics
Commodities like oil, gas, and coal play a massive role in industrial expenses and environmental performance. Tracking market prices and usage can help optimize both production output and energy consumption. As we know, if your time isn't profitable, and the energy required to power your plant is too high, your operating costs will increase and could have you researching peak vs. non-peak energy usage times in no time!
On the other hand, if you're in the business of harnessing energy commodities, knowing the quantity you are producing, your energy consumption to withdraw the resource, and the current price that you will receive for these materials can make all the difference in whether it makes more sense to produce more or less of the commodity.
If you’re looking for some market statistics by commodity type, the US Energy Information Administration have a wealth of information for time series pricing, production, consumption, and other data points. Using OPC Router’s REST plug-in allows you to easily keep track of this information and integrate it with your ERP and MES systems.
Natural Resources Statistics
If your operations depend on water, minerals, or other natural resources, knowing their availability and cost trends is essential for long-term planning and regulatory compliance. For natural resources, the availability of data will depend on the particular natural resource you’re interested in, but a wealth of data on total energy can be found here. For instance, the US Geological Survey StreamStats team publishes useful water resource information via RESTful web services. This will provide information that will allow you to successfully navigate situations in which you need to reduce water consumption, such as droughts.
Weather Data Integration
From agriculture to energy to logistics, weather patterns affect nearly every industry. Current, forecasted, and historical weather data can help predict downtime, adjust operations, and improve safety protocols. If you're part of the wind energy community, for instance, knowing the current and forecasted wind speed and direction is important to how much yield will be possible from wind turbines in a particular location over a certain period of time. That's one example, but depending on your industry, the weather can affect your operations in a variety of ways.
Now, there are several weather services out there that expose current and forecasted weather data for any location. One such popular service is OpenWeatherMap, which provides a free weather API available in JSON format for current, historical, and forecasted weather variables, and locations can be specified by zip code, city, or even latitude/longitude. Check out an example of OPC Router consuming this very data here.
Facility Temperature & Humidity Monitoring
If your operation depends on stable environmental conditions, monitoring temperature and humidity is key. Many modern sensors come equipped with RESTful APIs that serve up live data in JSON format—perfect for integration into dashboards, alarms, or automation triggers. As we discussed in our Harnessing Waste Heat for a Greener Future blog post, this temperature data can be easily implemented in heat reclamation systems, as well.
Bring It All Together with OPC Router
This is just a snapshot of the power of external data integration using JSON RESTful Web Service APIs—but with the right tools, the possibilities are nearly endless. That’s where OPC Router comes in.
OPC Router makes it easy to connect your industrial systems—like SCADA, MES, ERP, and cloud platforms—to valuable external data sources via JSON-based RESTful APIs. No coding required.
Whether you're integrating energy pricing, weather forecasts, commodity trends, or facility conditions, OPC Router enables:
Drag-and-drop configuration of REST API calls to retrieve data in JSON format and parse the JSON data structures- Seamless mapping of JSON data to industrial protocols like OPC UA, MQTT, databases, and more
- Automated updates to SCADA, MES, ERP, and dashboards—no manual entry needed
- Flexible triggers, conditions, and logic to automate decisions and alerts
- Scalable, low-maintenance, container deployable architecture designed for IIoT and Industry 4.0 environments
With OPC Router, your control system becomes smarter—capable of reacting to external variables for better performance, lower costs, and improved sustainability.
Ready to make JSON RESTful web services part of your energy optimization strategy? Start your free trial of OPC Router or talk to our subject matter experts for a quick consultation.
