Making it easier for people to access better information about energy use in their homes or businesses is essential to achieving smarter and more efficient energy use. Studies show that simply giving people access to real-time information about their energy use leads to energy savings of up to 15%.
Thanks to new devices that are coming to the market, called "smart meters" or smart meters, the consultation of our consumption will be much easier. These devices are not far from the current meters, except for one big difference: the online connectivity that allows us to export the data to our network.
In this way, and after entering the rates that we have contracted with our company, we can consult daily the accumulated consumption that we carry.
Google PowerMeter
The data of the meters, once they reach the network, need a software that shows them to us as graphs, historical, warnings ... etc. Just at the moment that seems to take off the sale of these smart meters, Google comes out with a software to manage everything: PowerMeter (watch video) and of course, the software is free. It can even be included as a widget on our desktop to have immediate access to the graphs of gas/electricity consumption. Another option will be to share our spending statistics with our contacts, in order to compare them and learn from them.
Thanks to the data offered by these meters, consulting companies will surely emerge that offer optimization services, in order to save on our electricity bills.
Advantages of smart meters
Under the motto of: "If you can not measure it you can not improve it" we understand that the best way to reduce our consumption of gas or electricity is by learning from the consumption of each device.
According to Google figures, if every American household managed to reduce electricity consumption by 10%, it would be the same as taking 8 million cars off the road. Much of the consumption of electrical appliances is in the famous stand by, and thanks to this software we can monitor the consumption under these circumstances.
These solutions are not only applicable for homes, imagine how useful they are to use in offices, or even buildings... Well, Microsoft is developing software similar to Google's, but intended for companies, so soon we will see a new battle to control the electrical measurement market.
Google will have valuable information, worldwide, which devices or brands are the ones that consume the most, and therefore, people will increasingly try to buy devices from these manufacturers, in order to reduce the monthly expense of the bill.
Connectivity
Current smart meters connect to our network via Wifi, so no special wiring is necessary. In the not too distant future, the electronic devices themselves will have the smart meter installed inside, sending the information to the consumption control software that we are using directly.
This will undoubtedly be a great step to take care of the environment, so we hope that the electricity companies will take note and do like those of our neighboring countries, offering these devices at very attractive prices for the client, although, will they really be interested in learning from our consumption and knowing how to reduce it?
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Authors: Javier Gainza
