14 DAY TRIAL // Google is well known for its search engine and the myriad of web services and products it offers but it is also developing quite a powerful philanthropic arm with a greater focus on green energy. Its engineers are involved in several projects and one that could have a great impact in the short term is the PowerMeter software, which monitors power usage in real time. And now Google is announcing that a major hurdle in a greater adoption of the utility has been removed with the first official hardware partner.
“Today, we're very excited to announce we have secured our first official device partner. (That means having a smart meter installed by your utility is no longer a prerequisite for using Google PowerMeter!),” Tom Sly, New Business Development, and Charles Spirakis, software engineer, wrote. “The TED 5000 from Energy Inc. is an energy monitor that measures electricity usage in real-time. As of today, we're pleased to announce that anyone in North America can purchase and install the TED 5000 and see personal home energy data using our free software tool, Google PowerMeter, from anywhere you can access the web including through iGoogle for mobile phones.”
The Google PowerMeter allows users to monitor their power consumption and view it in a meaningful way in a gadget on their iGoogle homepage. The utility is free for consumers as well as the utility companies but it required that a smart meter be installed for the household to use it. Smart meters are very slowly starting to pick up so the tool, while potentially very useful, was pretty much pointless for the general public.
With Energy Inc.'s The Energy Detective (TED) users don't need to have a smart meter and for $200 they can buy the monitoring device which now comes with the Google software preinstalled. The partnership is nonexclusive and it also involves no financial deal and the company will continue to work with utility companies like Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric and Germany's Yello Strom.