Google powermeter
Google have just announced an interesting new initiative – Google.org is soon to roll out free software which allows people to track their home electricity use and improve energy efficiency in a bid to help mitigate global warming.
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.
I’m not sure it will work in New Zealand but we’ll keep an eye on it.
Oh and as an aside … here’s an interesting piece on french nuclear success or otherwise.
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They should whack one of those things on Huntly power station and show it on TV 24 hours a day
jokes aside technology of that nature is already available in industry. Users can use an internet browser like internet explorer and connect to any meter that is connected to an ethernet network. .Software is available to monitor and present the data in a useful way. From there Industry can load shed and reduce power consumption in non cretical areas of plant. Although house holds may struggle to change the amount of power (would suggest that the majority of usage is unavoidable) they maybe able to change the way they use that power reducing stress on Networks and consumer cost. Its about better and more efficient use of the energy available.
A little bit of advertising guys and girls but have a look at the below link interesting reading for anyone interested in being smarter about the way we use our energy
http://www.schneider-electric.co.nz/news?cid=1107&pid=27323
This Google Power meter may be of use to richer households. However with up to 40% of households in many areas of New Zealand now “energy deprived” (unhelpful term) this technology tends to be yet another source of stress in households.
I differentiate between “smart” technology and “intelligent” technology – the latter exists in situations when citizens retain full democratic rights and both supplier and consumer can hold an equal conversation. I have a draft guide for rating local 230V electrical grids on a scale ranging from intelligent to incoherent. It can be spotted at http://tinyurl.com/ywtxch
What this rating system indicates is that NZ’s higher voltage electrical grids lost much intelligence with the 1993 Electricity Industry Reforms and the 1998 legislation means that not a single community in New Zealand owns the intelligence of its local grid now. In this context technology such as this Google device adds little to the sustainability of our nation – indeed the bankers of the Bulk-gen electricity sector can use it to control and exploit households on scale. I am sad to note that Greenpeace plays a prominent role promoting this unsustainable regime. See the “Clean Energy Guide”. Until our communities are re-enfranchised again we will fail to benefit from the confluence of the new technologies of “smart” monitoring, “smart” appliances, broadband and dwelling scale generators.
Dave McArthur
http://www.bonusjoules.co.nz
Thanks for your post Dave, I agree with your comment:
“the latter exists in situations when citizens retain full democratic rights and both supplier and consumer can hold an equal conversation”
The parts of the environmental movement that fail to recognise this are not helping us get anywhere near the changes required to address climate change. You might even say their legitimizing of ineffective policy and throwing of guilt onto people buying ‘the wrong’ stuff is a big part of the problem. A massively disempowering distraction.
Greenpeace need to get themselves out of mainstream reformist politics, stop giving the public the impression that only their buying power can solve climate change and get back to the real world where they started [and flourished] where real change occurs.
Hi I have tested the Googlepower meter with the ENVI in Wellington.
Works well, and is easy to install but the instant reading of power is good to react to whats on and turn off appliances that you know you arent using.