Google PowerMeter Arrives In The UK

Google is preparing to launch its free PowerMeter tool in the UK, enabling British consumers to monitor their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions via the web. The service will be available to customers of first:utility – a small gas and electricity provider with around 30,000 customers – from early November.

PowerMeter, which has already been trialled in the US, receives data from smart meters and other energy management devices installed in people’s homes and businesses. The software can plot graphs of a user’s energy consumption over time and compare it to their previous usage and regional averages.

Google hopes that confronting people with their daily energy use will encourage them to reduce their consumption by only using electricity when they need it. The Energy Saving Trust claims that just by raising people’s awareness of what they are using, smart meters can reduce household energy bills by 5 to 10 percent.

Users can track their energy consumption in near-real-time on PowerMeter from a computer or mobile phone anywhere in the world by accessing their personalised iGoogle homepage.

“Ever since first:utility launched, it has been our intention to overhaul the UK’s outdated energy supply industry to give customers better service and lower cost energy,” said first:utility’s CEO Mark Daeche in a statement. “At the end of the day, if you can’t measure and view your energy use, it’s very difficult to make savings.”

first:utility is the only energy supplier in the UK to provide free smart meters to its customers. However, customers are required to sign up to a two-year contract in order to have the smart meter fitted to their gas and electricity pipes.

Consumers can also access the iGoogle service by buying a gadget called AlertMe Energy, which attaches to an electricity meter and transmits data via a broadband hub. The AlertMe device costs £69, and requires a £2.99 monthly subscription.

Google’s PowerMeter service provides consumers with information which has long been the preserve of the electric utility industry. The UK government has promised that all houses will have smart meters by 2020, but some utilities have complained to Ofgem about the cost, and network giant Cisco has warned that any smart grid will eat into vendors’ revenues. Utilities have been accused of lobbying against the meters, or trying to limit their function.

“Utility companies do think about consumers in this debate and believe that if they don’t help consumers with energy management someone else will,” said the director of smart grids at Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, Christian Feisst. “But smart grid is about improving the efficiency of the system and reducing consumption which by definition lowers revenue for you, and it’s the utilities that have to do the investment if you want to have a smart grid becoming a reality.”