Google wants to give Power to the People
The search giant on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009, showed off a prototype Web application that displays home energy consumption broken down by appliance. The software uses so-called smart meters, which can communicate home energy consumption back to utilities every few minutes.
The driving idea behind the Google PowerMeter iGoogle gadget--and nearly all smart-grid companies--is that giving consumers access to more detailed home energy data will lead to lower usage. There are dozens of smart-grid trial programs now going on, offered through utilities.
Google’s mission is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," and the company believes that consumers have a right to detailed information about their home electricity use.
Currently, our utility company sends us a bill at the end of the month with very few details. Most people don't know how much electricity their appliances use, where in the house they are wasting electricity, or how much the bill might go up during different seasons. But in a world where everyone had a detailed understanding of their home energy use, we could find all sorts of ways to save energy and lower electricity bills. Google reports that studies show that access to home energy information results in savings between 5-15% on monthly electricity bills. It may not sound like much, but if half of America's households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road. The Google Powermeter is currently being tested by Googlers and is not available to the public.
There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years. Google is also trying to influence smart-grid policy. On Tuesday, it published recommendations to the California Public Utility Commission, advocating that home energy data be available to consumers in real time for free in standard formats.
"Unfortunately, many of today's smart meters don't display information to the consumer. We consider this unacceptable. We believe that detailed data on your personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in a standard, non-proprietary format," according to the announcement on the Official Google blog.
The Google PowerMeter as an extensible platform, much the way the Google's Android software is for mobile devices. By building on the relatively simple features it introduced on Tuesday, Google could get into other businesses, such as coordinating the flow of energy from plug-in hybrid cars to the power grid during peak times.
There are several incentives for smart-grid deployments--the Obama administration has set a target of bringing smart meters to 40 million homes over the next three years--are a big part of the stimulus package being considered by Congress, with as an early draft offering $11 billion for research.
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