Google: We’re Gonna Turn It On. We’re Gonna Bring You the Power.
by John Paczkowski
Posted on February 10, 2009 at 8:20 AM PT
When Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in 2005, “We are moving to a Google that knows more about you,” he wasn’t kidding. Just four years later and the company is learning about us from a host of online services that extend far beyond the simple search application at the center of Google’s business: email, chat, video, news, books, calendaring, location and now, personal energy usage patterns as well. This morning, the company announced Google PowerMeter, an application that will let consumers to track their electricity consumption.
Integrated into Google’s iGoogle platform, PowerMeter works with the so-called “smart grid” to show a granular, real-time view of electricity-consuming devices–the theory being that seeing your energy usage makes it easier to reduce it.
“Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage,” the company explains. “Studies show that access to your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill, and the potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road.”
Like many Google (GOOG) initiatives, PowerMeter is giddy with change-the-world altruism. And change the world it may. But like many Google initiatives, there’s a trade-off: the disclosure of increasingly more information about our predilections, our interests and habits to a company that’s amassing a vast data set about customer behavior.
Comments
google, schmoogle…
Posted by Mark Omega at February 10th, 2009 at 10:06 amanother google experiment…remember their 3-d home designer, google base, even blogger is a has been
Posted by Sam Harrison at February 10th, 2009 at 12:26 pmTalk about a momentum booster. Google’s entrance into the smart grid conversation is great news all around, just as President Obama is turning up the volume on its importance as well. No one company or entity can tackle all the challenges around building the smart grid and populating it with smart meters. Google’s entrance into the conversation is not only a great complementary effort in providing consumers the tools they need to take charge of their energy consumption; it validates the issue. When Google speaks, people listen.
It’s a piece of a larger platform approach—one that Tendril’s building out—that adds the necessary elements of consumer and utility control, in addition to device-level information, that enables a real-time dialogue between consumers and their energy provider. It’s great to see quickening momentum among vendors, utilities and consumers as we drive 21st century energy efficiency on the road to energy independence.
Information is the key to change. Having Google throw their weight to drive real change is a huge win for the industry, for Tendril and for consumers.
Posted by Marie Bahl at February 11th, 2009 at 11:08 amWith PowerMeter, Google is validating the valuable role of energy monitoring in empowering end users with the information they need to take control of their personal energy consumption. I work with Fat Spaniel Technologies (www.fatspaniel.com), and we absolutely support Google’s stated principle that “open protocols and standards should serve as the cornerstone of smart grid projects” (from their blog). Last year we announced the industry’s first open energy monitoring solution – the Fat Spaniel Insight Platform™. We believe that in order to provide users with a complete energy solution, it must be an open platform that can monitor all devices and systems and distill the data into usable information. As such, Fat Spaniel will extend its open, standardized interface to Google’s PowerMeter once it is publicly released. We currently provide the monitoring technology for more than 2,000 renewable energy plants across 17 countries today, and we think that Google’s validation of the energy monitoring market will help spread the technology for adoption across all energy systems universally.
Posted by Robb Henshaw at February 13th, 2009 at 12:48 am