Managing “Big Data” is a big issue these days, especially within the energy industry, SmartPlanet reports. Companies are compiling huge amounts of data about energy supply and consumption, and cloud computing is enabling them to forecast future usage and even create alternative energy models. For example, Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) service is used by companies like Urjanet, a startup that tracks data from utility sources to help organizations reduce costs and track carbon outlay. Urjanet gives their customers valuable power usage data. It can continue to scale up its computing efforts at low cost—all because its data processing engine sits on the cloud. Long term, energy data initiatives on the cloud could lead to better informed, environmentally friendly decision-making.