Along with introducing renewable energy sources as the future direction in electrical energy production, it's also important to reduce electrical energy consumption – the other side of the energy issue coin, so to speak. In order to cut down on electrical energy consumption, we have to have a pretty detailed picture about our own consumption trends (when do we turn on major electrical energy monsters, how that affects overall household consumption, how much energy do we save by not turning on lights when they are not really needed, etc). In order to monitor these power trends we need a tool that will make it easy to track consumption and pinpoint intervals during the day when improvements could/should be made.

Google has announced it will create such a tool – Google PowerMeter. I suppose this will be a web application, as the trend is to transfer data storage and processes into "the cloud", plus it would make it more adoptable on the larger scale. The plot is Google wants "smart" electricity meters to be installed throughout the world. The benefits are that these meters would provide detailed consumption data on a daily basis, which should in theory allow consumers to make smarter decisions about how and when to use their electricity powered appliances, tools, and machines. Basically, this should reduce power consumption, and reduce energy budget expenses on a global scale. The power meters themselves are not enough to collect and make available the recorded data, so a software platform is needed, which is where Google PowerMeter comes in. It will organize this data into meaningful reports, easily accessed by users, charting areas of increased power consumption, and areas of minimal power consumption, allowing us to schedule processes accordingly, and achieve an optimal power consumption profile. For example, a report may look something like this:

This effort may be a part of something bigger, that will involve aggregating an overall consumption picture for the whole world, organized by continent, region or city, that will be available online. So, if you're thinking of moving to Canada, you may want to check the "optimized" electricity consumption profiles collected from people who live there, and get a clearer picture about what your electrical bill will look like, and use that assessment in your plans. This is only a small example, as the possible uses of this project could be far more "out there".

It's a pitty that it takes an economic recession and the global warming crisis to get things moving. This could and should have been done years ago, but I guess we were to busy, stuck in traffic.