Soon Internet giant Google will organize your home’s energy information using a software.
Google’s so called product, PowerMeter is a piece of software that consumers can view online (real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget) to see how much electricity they’re consuming in their homes.
Google figures that our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage.
How much does it cost to leave your TV on all day? What about turning your air conditioning 1 degree cooler? Google thinks that the PowerMeter will offer more useful and actionable feedback than complicated monthly paper bills that provide little detail on consumption or how to save energy.
Google cites studies — Access to your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road.
What Google is Doing ?
Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.
Definitely by putting more information about the energy use at the hands of consumers, will improve energy use and promote environmental goodness.
More at google powermeter