Posts Tagged ‘Google PowerMeter’
written by Brendan / February 19th, 2010 / No Comments »
Back since Google PowerMeter was first announced I had been excited to try it out. Initially PowerMeter was only available from Utility providers that had partnered with Google. Unfortunately the energy provider we use in our California office was not one of these and we started to consider switching just so that we could take PowerMeter for a spin. Then Google announced that the PowerMeter service would become available to those who use select energy monitoring devices, the first being the TED 5000. Great, I ordered one of these immediately, but too quickly to even read the small print which says that the TED 5000 will only work with 2-phase power supplies. Inevitably, when I checked ours I found it is a 3-phase system and thus incompatible. Of course, all of this only served to increase my anticipation.
So, when UK company AlertMe was announced as the second device partner, I finally got my chance to try out the elusive service. AlertMe’s energy monitoring gadget is designed to monitor in real-time how much electricity you are using. The system comes in two parts, the first being the ‘Meter Reader and Transmitter’. This consists of a clip that attaches around your main electricity line. Not an electrical connection though, it simply sits outside the wire’s shielding. The clip is connected to a transmitter which will send the meter readings wirelessly to the second part of the system, the ‘Nano Hub’. This gadget will receive these meter readings and via an ethernet cable will send your energy data over the web for you to access 24/7 from anywhere.
In addition to allowing you access to Google PowerMeter, AlertMe also provide their own dashboard to view your data, which is very functional. Below you can see the initial snapshot view of whats going on. You can see clearly your current electricity draw and a calculation of what it has cost you so far for the day. Your personal cost per KWHr and currency is fully customizable. The history feature is also quite detailed, you can view a graph of energy use for anywhere from one day to an entire year. It can also be downloaded as a spreadsheet (csv). Data is updated every 5 minutes so you can get a very detailed break down of your energy usage habits. For example, you can clearly see peaks in the graph when your heating kicks in or when you put the kettle on for your morning cup of coffee. (more…)
Tags: AlertMe, Google PowerMeter, PowerMeter, TED 5000
Posted in Energy Monitors, Energy Saving Tips, Featured, For Home, Green Gadgets, In Depth Reviews, Profiles | No Comments »
written by Brendan / February 17th, 2010 / 2 Comments »
EarthAid is a brand new system designed to help you monitor your energy usage and encourage you to reduce it. They provide a database of energy saving tips and users who carry these out successfully will receive points for the energy that they save. This applies not just to electricity use, but both water and gas as well. The service ties in with your online account for your utility providers so will track your energy use automatically. Points can be exchanged for rewards from the partner network that EarthAid has set up. Usefully, they also provide information on the various tax incentives that are applicable. For example, if one of the actions you are considering is purchasing a new Energy Star qualified refrigerator they will link to the relevant tax rebates that you are entitled to.
Sign up is free, and the company makes clear that they intend to keep it that way. The first thing that you need to do is link your energy accounts. You can select your utility providers from a pre populated drop down menu and enter your login details. Obviously, your utility provider will need to provide online access to your bills, but from a few trials on their system it seems that the majority of providers do offer this. If your provider doesn’t allow this, I suggest you contact them because the sooner we can escape the black box of energy billing, the better. If you successfully link your energy bills then your data will be fed into EarthAid and you can monitor your energy usage, similarly to Google PowerMeter.
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Tags: EarthAid, Energy Star, Google PowerMeter, MyEmmissionsExchange, Reduce Energy Use
Posted in Green Websites, In Depth Reviews, Off Grid Living, Plentyways.com, Profiles | 2 Comments »
written by Brendan / September 9th, 2009 / 6 Comments »
Google Powermeter is a new software tool that has been developed to help people track and analyze their home energy usage. The tool will provide a graphical interface that shows, in real time, how much electricity your house is pulling in from the grid. The pictures Google have made public indicate that the software will help you identify how much of your total energy usage is being made by each individual component in your house. Using energy intensive utilities like dish washers and kettles will provide a characteristic spike in your electricity usage so you will be able to identify the electrical footprint of all the utilities in your house. Knowing Google, there will be a few unexpected extras thrown in there as well. It’s currently still in beta but it is slowly starting to become available to more and more people.
Example of Google Powermeter
So why is energy usage monitoring important? Studies have shown that the mere act of measuring energy will actually cause energy usage to drop by an average of 5-15%. This is presumably because many energy saving actions will become very obvious. If you can see in a simple visual format the effect of running a dish washer or dryer you will immediately realize its a good idea to only run them only when they are full.
Why is Google getting involved in this? Google understands that when it comes to the environment the stakes are high and has always set a good example of corporate social responsibility. If each household in America used PowerMeter and got a 10% saving in energy usage because of it that would be the equivalent of taking more than 17 million cars off the road. Not bad for a simple software tool that is relatively inexpensive and simple to implement. The savings for consumers are also huge. One Google engineer in the video below claims to have dropped his bill by 64% and saved almost $3,000 already.
This is exactly the philosophy behind the project. In order to change something you need to be able to measure it. Google is going to arm you with the information you need to understand your energy usage, therefore enabling you to make the most effective changes to reduce it. Google will provide many tips on what you can do to save energy (and money) and the collaboration between users will be very exciting: sharing energy saving actions; calculating how effective each action is based on feedback from many people’s PowerMeter results; detailed aggregate data of energy usage; are just a few ideas that come to mind.
At the moment Google is forging partnerships with utility companies to bring the service to the public. If you use any of these providers, then you should be able to test out PowerMeter right away. In the US the partners are JEA in Florida, TXU Energy in Texas and San Diego Gas & Electric. We are considering switching our provider in our California office to San Diego Gas & Electric in order to take advantage of this. This google map of utility providers that use ’smart grid’ technology is likely to be a good indication of the utility companies that will adopt PowerMeter in the future, as such technology is required to make it work.
Tags: Energy Saving, Google, Google PowerMeter, Utility Providers
Posted in Energy Monitors, Energy Saving Tips, Featured, For Home, Green News | 6 Comments »
