http://www.piedaterredc.com/

http://kkhobbies.blogspot.com/

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.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Smart Grids and what they can do for us and the planet. Never heard of it? Just click on the link to learn more.
The goal is to reduce the consumption of electricity which is good for everyone and at the same …

(Disclaimer: I may be biased; we write the web app that interacts with the hardware device and presents information in the same way as Google’s PowerMeter. For electricity, water *and* gas usage.)

http://www.nyti...y/14google.html

I hope Google puts pressure on utility companies to reinvent themselves.

There’s a related article on this subject by Wired.
http://www.wire...-08/st_thompson

The world thanks you for your installation…;)

Google is testing a prototype product that they’ve dubbed the PowerMeter, which is designed to convey energy use information to energy users. PowerMeter is premised on the famous phrase by……

Kind of difficult to out sell “free”. Anyway, I’m over my irritation with Google. Here’s some info that might be of interest. Its very difficult for utilities to do real-time meter reading so that they can monitor your meters, much less things in your house. They simply can’t cover their entire territories with IP networks and the other technologies like power line carrier and peer-to-peer narrowband wireless simply don’t cut it. In fact, the most popular automated meter reading system is drive-by and it isn’t even that inexpensive. Utilities don’t really want to rely on anyone else’s network either. My company has had success with residential for very small municipal utilities that put in their own wireless networks — and when we meter electric, gas, water — and control air conditioning and water heaters during peak periods. Then it easily pays for itself – 1 city had a 1 year ROI and 0 unhappy customers. Meter reading is too cheap for it to provide the needed ROI to install the equipment. However, it saves utilities a bundle if energy usage is curtailed when their cost of energy is high.

Google’s solution doesn’t include for free the hard part – getting the data from the meter to their system, its more of an API that they hope utilities will choose or be forced to use to share the user’s usage so they can present it. I suppose some home owners will buy a device that sends data directly to Google.

I wouldn’t discount this information being valuable to advertisers — the window retrofit and appliance markets are very big and with your load profile – I could figure out if you needed new windows, etc.

I am sure this is to just help their lobbyists sell the idea to get the funds as in home units are not cost effective and several established utility related companies have been working on this for years. The only way is if Google will buy these companies, thus maybe the ability to get Government funds for this.

Join the club Google.

http://www.thee...gydetective.com