Google PowerMeter: The Path to Smarter Power

How much does it cost to keep your bathroom light on all day?
Which uses more energy, your washing machine or your dryer?
How in the world can you find out?

Thanks to Google, this information may soon be close at hand. Google is providing a free web service called PowerMeter that consumers can use to track energy use in their house or business as it is consumed. Google PowerMeter receives information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provides customers with access to their home electricity consumption right on their personal iGoogle homepage. To get access to a home’s electricity information, the home either needs an advanced electricity meter (a “smart meter”) or a consumer-owned electricity management device. But smart meters need to be coupled with a strategy to provide customers with easy access to detailed information on their energy usage. Google PowerMeter, combined with your utilities company, will be able to provide you with your home’s electrical information in the form of a secure Google gadget.

Knowing my home’s electrical information and power usage is great, but how can this help lower my energy bills? Google claims that their studies show that access to your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you 5-15% on your monthly bill.

Google PowerMeter features functions such as an analysis that will provide better information about how your home uses energy. It will suggest ways for you to be more energy efficient and will propose ways that you can lower your energy bill. The application even has a sharing function to see how your energy consumption compares to that of your friends and neighbors.

For now, Google PowerMeter is only available to a limited group of customers because it is still in beta testing mode, but it will be free to both utilities and customers.

Google hopes to work with as many utility companies as possible to deliver this data to anyone with a smart meter. Their current utilities partners include Glasgow EPB, JEA, Reliance Energy, San Diego Gas & Electric, Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited, TXU Energy, White River Valley Electric Cooperative, and Wisconsin Public Service. Google has also joined forces as an integration partner with Itron, which serves over 8,000 utilities clients.

For more information, please visit the Google PowerMeter FAQ page by clicking here.

Article and image excerpted from Google.org.