Home energy monitoring by google

Reducing energy consumption is clearly a global imperative, butbefore one can reduce it helps to know how much one is alreadyconsuming. Targeting the 40 million "smart meters" now in useworldwide - and the 100 million more soon to be added - Google is testing anew gadget that will take the information such devices collect and makeit more easily accessible to the consumer.

Many smart meters don't display consumption information to the user, but Google's PowerMeterprototype - now in closed beta - is designed to receive such informationand provide access to it via the user's iGoogle homepage. Aiming tohelp users make better energy decisions, the technology taps Google'sscalable, secure IT architecture and the iGoogle gadget platform toshow consumers their energy use in near real-time, including ananalysis of how much energy is used by different household appliancesand activities. Google vows to keep all data under the user's control,and it says it hopes to work with as many utility companies as possibleto deliver the technology for free to anyone with a smart meter.

Source: springwise.comAdded: 6 March 2009