The New York Times is reporting that on Tuesday, Google will announce a tool called PowerMeter. This tool, as you may assume, is designed to measure power usage within households and businesses, and will be free to anyone, available via the web.
Google won"t be releasing any devices to take use of this technology, but will count on other companies to build gadgets to feed the data to PowerMeter. Google hopes to have the service ready within a few months, but as the NYT states, has not lined up any companies to build tools for it.
Kirsten Olsen Cahill, program manager at Google, has stated, "We depend on a whole ecosystem of utilities, device makers and policies that would allow consumers to have detailed access to their home energy use and make smarter energy decisions."
This new tool may not sound very exciting, but it really could open up some wonderful possibilities. For example: Rick Sergel, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation has said that dishwasher manufacturers have been putting in chips that let you choose the time you run it. This, when paired up with the tool, could analyze your power costs, and then find the optimal time to run it. For example, if power costs are discounted at 3am in the morning, the dishwasher will run then, saving you money. It could also tell the user how much money they saved by doing so. This prospect could go over to many power-dependent devices, such as smart cars. They take a lot of power to charge, and so PowerMeter could choose to run it at also the most cost efficient time.
Check back tomorrow to see what other information Google releases with their announcement of PowerMeter.