[Ict4devwg] News: Google Offers ":Smart" Metering Software to Consumers

[Vern Weitzel]

Subject: 	News: Google Offers ":Smart" Metering Software to Consumers
Date: 	Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:51:31 -0700
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http://greenbiz.com/blog/2009/06/16/google-powermeter

*Google Helps Consumers Get Smart About Energy
*     Greenbiz.com's Senior Writer Marc Gunther is blogging from the
20th annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., an event
sponsored by Johnson Controls and the United States Energy Association.

By Marc Gunther, June 16, 2009

Imagine if you walked into a grocery store, chose the food you want (no
price tags), took it home and then, at the end of the month, got the
bill in the mail. "That's essentially what we are doing with electricity
and natural gas right now," says Dan Reicher, who heads energy and
climate policy at Google, which is aiming to change that.

Instead giving energy consumers a monthly bill that arrives after the
fact and is hard for even a geek to decipher, Google wants to give them
a way to track their electricity use in real time, or close to, through
a free, open-protocol piece of software called Google's PowerMeter.

It's being rolled out in cooperation with eight utility companies, six
in the U.S., one in Canada and one in India, that feed the software data
through smart meters or other devices.

"Just the simple act of getting people information can really change the
way they use energy," Reicher says.

The software, for now, tracks electricity use, but there's no reason it
can't be adapted to meter natural gas or water in the future. The
software can be installed on a Google home page (alongside stock prices
or sports scores) or on a mobile device. "You get data, numbers,
graphics, all kinds of interesting things," he says.

Making consumers smarter about energy has real potential, especially
when it is combined with time-of-day pricing. If utilities (and their
allies like Google) can persuade people to use less electricity during
summer days when it is expensive and more during off peak hours, they
won't have to build as many new power plants to meet peak loads and
everyone will save money.

Google employees have been testing the PowerMeter for some time, with
amusing results. One tenant in a San Francisco apartment saw unusual
spikes in his usage and learned that he was paying for the washer and
dryer for his entire building. Another found that her swimming pool pump
never turned off. A third replaced old refrigerators in the kitchen and
garage and cut his utility bill by 45 percent.

The scope of Google's work around energy and climate is quite
remarkable, as Reicher explained. (He's a typically smart Google exec, a
former energy investor and policymaker during the Clinton
administration.) Google is investing in geothermal energy, doing its own
research on solar thermal power, pushing hard for plug-in hybrids and
"greening" its data centers. I'm hoping to dig deeper into Google's
energy work in a future post.

For other coverage of the Energy Efficiency Forum, see Marc Gunther's
posts about efficiency and wind energy initiatives at schools in Madison
County, N.C., and speaker highlights.

/***   NOTICE:  In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational
purposes only.   ***/
//

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-- 
Vern Weitzel (Mr.) BSc, BA, MA, M Env Man & Dev
<vern at coombs.anu.edu.au> <vern.weitzel at gmail.com> <vernweitzel at mac.com>

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