Feb 12, 2009
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Google is on a mission to help people have control over their electricity bills with a new software tool called Google Powermeter. Google has been actively pursuing their mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and part of that is giving consumer’s the right to see how much electricity they use.
Currently everyone just receives a bill for how much electricity they used not knowing why it was so high and what appliances are using the most so they can effectively take over on how to use their electricity in a much smarter way.
There have been some new meters called “Smart Meters”, which are advanced energy meters, that have been used on 40 million homes with plans to add a 100 million over the next few years.
There have been Google engineers who have been working on the software tool over the last few months and are currently in testing mode. The tool allows consumers to see how much home energy they are using almost in real time on their computer. The testing will first be with Googlers as they do some troubleshooting.
Google is planning on building some partnerships with utility companies as they plan on rolling out the software in pilot program phases. This is what Google is trying to do to help the energy dependent problem in the United States.
Studies show that those who know how much energy they are using result in saving 5-15% on monthly electrical bills. Read more of the study here.