Part of IBM Smarter Planet program, the project follows the Smarter Building initiative. The technology analyzes real-time electricity usage including individual appliances and reports it to consumers. Using IBM’s software, homeowners can view online information that displays their electricity use, figures out the cost, and compares it with usage by other people.

Even though the project is supposedly designed to help consumers make better decisions regarding their power needs, the study’s will definitely help researchers monitor people usage and measure their attitudes toward energy conservation. Through this project, IBM can really demonstrate the capacity of its database technology to handle lots of data.  In a simulation, they were able to get 3 million homes sending readings once a minute and capture nearly 50,000 readings per second.

How do you feel about software companies knowing your exact consumption of energy, down to each appliance?

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!