by wildcherry on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | News, Tech/Gadget

When we think about oil price we constantly think about car and gas. But please think about this carefully :

In 2006, Oxford University study that indicates that consumers who monitored their home energy use lowered their monthly bills by 5 to 15 percent “If half of America’s households cut their energy demand by 10 percent,” the company adds, “it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road.”

Thus this is why Google working on this project below :

If you’re still clutching your chest over that last sky-high electric bill and wondering how to keep it down next month, you’ll be heartened to hear that help may be on the way from the company behind the world’s largest search engine. Google this week announced that it’s developing software called PowerMeter, which will let consumers check out their home energy use in near- real time on their computers. The company says on its blog that it’s working with utility companies to ready for the market. No word on how long the testing will last before PowerMeter will be available for download.

PowerMeter will first be available through iGoogle, a Google service that lets you make a customized Web browser homepage. For those concerned about placing more information about their lives online for everyone to see, Google notes on its blog that it will not share personally identifying information with the user’s utility company. Users will also be able to delete their energy data or ask their utility to stop sending data to Google PowerMeter at any time.

Homes will need to be equipped with so-called smart meters to take advantage of the program. These meters, which have been installed in about 40 million households worldwide, provide more detailed information about energy use than do normal meters and communicate directly with the utility company (no one needs to come to your home to read your meter). Google’s drive for such technology given that the search engine has invested in smart grid companies Germantown, Maryland-based Current Group and Redwood City, California-based Silver Spring Networks, Reuters U.K. reported.

Source:sciam

Tags: electric bills, energy crisis, enviroment, global crisis, google power meter, Greenhouse gas, lower electric bills, lower monthly bills, powermeter, smart meters