Can Google Help Us Conserve Energy?

Today, Google announced its new Google PowerMeter. Although still in prototype mode, when ready it will receive information from utility smart meters, such as the one we provide at PG&E [see picture], and energy management devices.  Anyone who signs up with Google will get access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. 

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, check the Google graph picturing the energy use for each household activities or items. Such a graph makes it easy to analyze our energy consumption and in turn should help us conserve energy and obviously save money.

To get access to the energy information, you need advanced meters called “smart meters.” According to Google, there are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.  At PG&E we started our program to install smart meters in 2006. The company’s goal is to install 10.3 million SmartMeter™ electric and gas meters for all customers by 2012. 

I believe this Google initiative is a great step toward home energy consumption. It empowers the user with critical information. Only a well informed user can take the steps necessary to save energy for her home.  In my daily work today, I can only make assumptions on the energy spent by consumers based on experience.  But nothing beats a graph that pinpoints which appliances use the most energy.  I am looking forward to the day when I can actually show this type of data to our consumers.  The next step will be to provide personalized energy conservation advice based on personal energy consumption data report – something a Utility company could provide on a monthly basis with their billing.  Access to this new data can only improve customer service and empower our customers with the knowledge of how to conserve more effectively and zero in on the culprit of high energy consumption in their homes.  In the meantime, PG&E provides an “energy calculator” on their web site that helps to calculate your energy usage based upon your household’s appliance usage.  It is fun to play with….check it out!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Conservation Tips, Smart Meters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Can Google Help Us Conserve Energy?”

  1. Kevin on February 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am

    Great blog post – very informative. I have a question. I live in Cupertino, how can I tell when I will have a new smart meter installed by PG&E? I am eager to see the details of my energy consumption at home right from my iGoogle dashboard.

  2. Soohool on February 13th, 2009 at 11:32 am

    Hi Kevin,

    Go to the PG&E schedule page at: http://www.pge.com/myhome/customerservice/meter/smartmeter/deployment/index.shtml

    and type in Cupertino. You will get the deployment schedule.
    It’s not for right away though. ;-)

  3. Alex on March 17th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Thanks for your post on the MercuryNews. I found your links very helpful. Would you know where I can get more information on the SmartMeters? I’d like to know how I can create a web interface for it. Thanks.

  4. Mike on July 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am

    So, when will PGE get with this program? I’ve had my SmartMeter since last Fall, but can’t do much with it at this point, until I can get access to the data

  5. soohool on September 8th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    Hi Mike,

    I am in the process of researching to see if there are any programs out there yet which can help customers analyze their data/usage. The only one so far that I have found is from Google but it is an article posted back in Feb. 2009;

    http://earth2tech.com/2009/02/09/google-jumps-into-organizing-smart-meter-energy-data/

    I’ll keep you posted when I find out more.

    Thanks so much for your post,

    Linda

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