Google PowerMeter was a software project of

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's philanthropic arm, Google.org, to help consumers track their home

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

usage. It was launched on October 5, 2009, and ended on September 16, 2011. The development of the software was part of an effort by Google to invest in

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

electricity grid An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power trans ...

upgrades, and other measures that would reduce

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

. The software was designed to record the user's electricity usage in near real-time. Google partnered with various companies during the project.

Description

Google PowerMeter was a software project of

's philanthropic arm, Google.org. The software was designed to help consumers track their home

usage. It was launched on October 5, 2009. The software was designed to record the user's electricity usage in near real-time. In June 2011 Google announced the service would cease, which it did on September 16, 2011.

Purpose

The development of the software was part of an effort by Google to invest in

upgrades, and other measures that would reduce

. It was hoped that this tool would raise the home-owner's awareness of how much energy they use and make users more energy efficient. PowerMeter was intended for use with

smart meter A smart meter is an electronic device that records information—such as consumption of electric energy, voltage levels, current, and power factor—and communicates the information to the consumer and electricity suppliers. Advanced meterin ...

s able to track electricity usage in more detail than standard electric meters. Some other types of electricity meters and in-home energy use displays could also be used with PowerMeter.

Analysis

According to the company, if half of America's homes' energy use was cut by ten percent, it would equal the average energy used by eight million cars. According to Google, in 2009 there were approximately 40 million smart meters in use worldwide. By early 2009, approximately 7% of US homes had a smart meter installed.

Partnerships

In May 2009, Google announced that it had partners with smart meter maker Itron. In October 2009 Google PowerMeter announced their first "device partner", The Energy Detective (TED 5000), an energy monitor from Energy Inc then only available only in North America, and their first UK partnership which was with AlertMe. Also in 2009, Yello Strom customers in Germany were able to begin adding the PowerMeter widget to their iGoogle pages to track their energy usage. In 2010 UK company Current Cost announced a collaboration with Google PowerMeter.

San Diego Gas and Electric San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE or SDG&E) is a regulated public utility that provides natural gas and electricity to San Diego County, California, San Diego County and southern Orange County, California, Orange County in southwestern California, ...

Sempra Energy Sempra is a North American public utility holding company based in San Diego, California. The company is one of the largest utility holding companies in the United States with nearly 40 million consumers. Sempra's focus is on electric and natur ...

company announced plans to install 1.4 million

s in

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...

and Southern Orange County by the end of 2011 and said that after they sent out 100,000 post cards to let consumers know they could use the Google PowerMeter service, about 6% had started to use it.

References

External links