A recent trip through the Internets has led me to a green concept that is picking up steam. The concept of a "green" house is not necessarily new, but I don't think certain aspects have been caught in mainstream. Most new home buyers know to look for the latest in Energy Star appliances, energy efficient windows, and the latest insulation to save money on that energy bill. My question is how many home buyers / owners know that they can monitor their power consumption so they can learn where to save on the monthly power bill? Utility companies will begin rolling out smart meters on homes across the land that more accurately measure power consumption. Currently the smart meter technology is not nation wide, being adopted so far in Northern California, L.A, San Diego, Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Each region is in different phases of implementation with the California regions making the most headway. In the Houston area the estimated completion of CenterPoint's smart meter roll out is slated for 2012. These smart meters talk to a Home Area Network wirelessly using the ZigBee Smart Energy Protocol and will allow utility companies to better see what home power use is and at what times of the day. One aspect that I am wary of is remote disconnects which are made available by the technology. The one benefit of such a quick disconnect remotely is that if you need to be reconnected to the grid, they can simply reconnect you at the click of the mouse rather than sending a tech out to your house. Each smart meter network may be implemented differently, but are still similar in functionality and idealogical.
Lets say you don't have a smart meter and would also like to monitor your power usage some way, enter Blue Line Innovations. They have a product called the PowerCost Monitor 28000 which can work with either a digital smart meter or the standard analogue power meter on most homes in the U.S. Blue Line claims on their website that buy using their device you can save up to $250 pear year on your home electricity bill. Reaching a feat of saving $250 a year or more is only achieve able by measuring your current usage and using that new knowledge to make educated changes to your home making it more efficient. By itself the PowerCost Monitor 28000 will read your meter and display its readings on a wireless hand held remote. For a cool $250 the PowerCost Monitor WiFi edition can be had which bundles the PowerCost monitor and the WiFi Gateway together. In my opinion the WiFi bundle is the only way to purchase this solution. It comes with a device that straps to your existing power meter which monitors your consumption and sends the results to the LCD handheld. One reason to seriously think about using a product like Blue Line is that you can keep the power company honest. If there is a discrepancy you can now have information at hand to work with. To take the functionality up to the surreal Blue Line offers the WiFi Gateway which interfaces with the PowerCost Monitor as well as Either Microsoft Hohm or Google PowerMeter.
The idea is simple, use the PowerCost Monitor to send its data wirelessly to the WiFi gateway which in turn allows either of the above mentioned web services to display the data in a way that is understandable to the home owner. Both services are free to use in and of themselves. Also, both Google and Microsoft are partnered with Blue Line Innovations which translates to tight integration.
Microsoft Hohm allows you to search your home from their homepage and it will give you an estimate of your possible saving with Hohm. My home in Texas can save a possible $1370 a year according to the website with an Average Energy Home Cost of $2760. From what I have seen the Hohm product is a little more in depth than the Google product. My goal today is not so much as to write a review or even an in depth product comparison. I merely wish to make the power monitoring solution known. Here is a sample usage report from the Hohm website. As you can see it breaks down the energy usage data daily well. One thing i like about the Hohm project is the energy breakdown by type such as heating, cooling, and lighting. Both products give you daily, monthly, and yearly data complete with averages yet Hohm seems to delve de
eper. With Hohm you get more interesting interface choices such as recommendations for power savings. MS Hohm tries to create a more home profile based experience that is also a social experience allowing users to share energy saving tips online. You can also start using Hohm without purchasing a monitoring device by answering the setup questions about your home.
Google did come first in the race for the web based Energy monitor console (only by a few months). With Google's PowerMeter the home owner gets a cleaner interface albeit with less to do. The PowerMeter can also be added to a users igoogle page as part of their daily workflow. Checking your power consumption can be as easy as checking new headlines or the weather. This Google PowerMeter sample page shows a description of a typical Home seen by the software. Keep in mind that to use this product one must have a smart meter or a third party monitor such as the Blue Line product. PowerMeter has a rather nifty budget tracker that will actively tell the home owner if they are over or under the daily budget. This along with the Always On Power bar can help a user track their possible power hogs. Google has also linked some testimonials to their website for those interested in saving on power as well.
PowerMeter does a very good job at tracking the power usage of a home but doesn't offer as deep a feature set as Hohm. Both products track power trends well, but Hohm has that something extra. If one wishes to have quick at a glance power usage data that is easy to navigate then PowerMeter is the one for your however if one wishes to really get their hands dirty and drill down into their homes power consumption then Hohm may not be a bad place to start. Either way you go I would highly recommend installing a Blue Line PowerCost Monitor behind it to really save on your bottom line.
*Note* Below are two videos one for each of the web based power monitor products.
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