meet in the Swedish town of Åre
We made the case recently on this blog for an
Energy Information Policy that would harness the power of information technology to support social change. In general, information technology can play a key role in giving citizens access to data that helps drive environmentally friendly behaviour. In particular, we suggested that the deployment of smart meters was a huge opportunity, especially as we would be building on an area of existing European leadership.
Smart meters collect real, or near real, time information on energy use. When this is reflected back to users, studies show that this has a significant impact on end consumer behaviour: On average, household energy savings amount to 5 - 15%. Even greater savings are possible if this information is used to see the value of retiring an old refrigerator, installing a new air conditioner or insulating the home.
The potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional
car off the road.
We wanted to leverage these large energy opportunities for our users, so we created Google
PowerMeter . It receives information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provides customers with access to their home electricity consumption right on their personal
iGoogle homepage.
The positive effects are already visible in our
first pilot agreements for Powermeter with utility companies around the world. Just recently, we announced our latest partner and first European utility,
Yello Strom , in Germany. Yello uses one of the globally most advanced smart metering technologies, giving users real-time feedback on their energy consumption.
Many of our internal users have seen significant savings opportunities through being a pilot tester for PowerMeter, and
all of them have become much more aware of energy lingo, and, much more importantly, just what it means to leave your HiFi on standby the whole day round (it translated to an impressive 140 Euros yearly savings
for me ).
Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development, and Benjamin Kott, Green Business Operations Manager, EMEA
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