"If we can not measure it, we can not improve it." This phrase of Lord Kelvin, whose real name is Sir William Thomson (British physicist known), is currently used by Google for its project Powermeter.
This project has a goal and a very simple concept: to help you reduce your power consumption by informing you that consumption. But if some of you know the consumption of their computer, their TV and refrigerator, this is not the case for everyone, and even less for all devices.
In sum, Google - and many other environmentalists - to reduce consumption inevitably requires a perfect knowledge of its consumption.
"Imagine how difficult it would be to manage its budget in a shop with no price displayed" asked Google's official blog. "Well, it just the way we buy electricity today. Your service company sends you a bill at the end of the month with very little detail. Most people do not know how much electricity their appliances are using, where precisely in the house they are wasting electricity, or how the bill may increase according to the different seasons. "
According to the American giant, studies have shown that better information on consumption would reduce their bill (and therefore consumption) of 5 to 15%. Figure is far from negligible, especially in the United States where pollution is an issue that has been treated seriously as well too late. According to Google, a general decrease of 10% only half of American households would be equivalent to the pollution generated by eight million cars.
Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.
Operator including smart meters, Powermeter based on three axes:
- Analyze:Get better information about how you use energy and what you can do to be more efficient.
- Save:Reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint by making smart decisions about your energy use.
- Share: Strike up a little friendly competition to see how your energy consumption compares to your friends and neighbors.
Google, recently criticized by a much discussed study on consumption of CO2 for every request made by Internet, has repeatedly shown its commitment to the environment. These include among others its investment in renewable energy and implementation of solar panels on his famous Googleplex.
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Originally Posted by Rodney123
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