Peddling home energy management gear and software successfully is harder than it seems, and big companies such as Microsoft and Cisco are ditching this market. EnergyHub is staying and on Thursday announced a $14.5 million round to help it sell products and services to consumers. Read More »
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Internet companies like Microsoft, Google and even router giant Cisco launched experimental software and hardware to help building managers and home owners monitor and control their energy consumption. But now these firms are abandoning those plans. Why? Read More »
Internet giants Google and Microsoft have officially given their web-based energy management tools the Donald Trump (as in You’re Fired!), and lannounced that they would be closing them down. But there are still over a dozen options trying to tackle this difficult market. Read More »
In the wake of Google pulling the plug on its energy tool PowerMeter, Microsoft says it has now killed its energy service, Hohm, too. Microsoft writes on its blog that it will discontinue its Hohm service starting on May 31, 2012. Read More »
Google officially shuttered its web energy tool PowerMeter on Friday after the application failed to bring in enough users. Here are five reasons why I think PowerMeter didn’t take off. Read More »
Google has officially pulled the plug on its web energy management tool PowerMeter. The project, which Google launched two years ago, just “didn’t catch on the way we would have hoped,” said Google. Read More »
The California Public Utility Commission is the first major regulator to issue such sweeping guidance on how data privacy should shape the smart grid. Here is how the ruling will affect the three big California utilities, as well as tech companies, startups and telcos. Read More »
OPower, the startup that gets homeowners to cut energy use with out in-home dashboards and gateways, is looking at home energy automation devices. What are the pros and cons of high-tech automation versus smart behavioral science? Read More »
Consumer electronics bigwig Belkin has just launched a $30 device that can measure household power use by watts, dollars and carbon footprint from any appliance or device that plugs into a wall socket. But will consumers pay for DIY home energy management? That’s still unclear. Read More »
Google’s web-based energy management tool PowerMeter could gain access to up to a million new users through a new gadget partnership with Current Cost. Read More »
With Microsoft’s work with Ford and GM’s recent partnership with Google on the Chevy Volt, it’s looking like automakers are teaming up with various Internet giants. How will the unions play out? Read More »
Despite the build out of smart grid infrastructure, there’s still a variety questions that remain unanswered when it comes to just what will a next-generation smart grid network look like? Here’s 5 points of debate that we’ll be addressing at our Green:Net conference on April 29: Read More »
More Must Reads
Will Google one day monitor and manage the energy consumption of your washer and dryer? The company has partnered with chip maker Microchip to work with developers in order to create embedded devices that are compatible with PowerMeter. Read More »
When it comes to smart grid data, how much is enough — and how much is too much? That question could pit the IT industry’s hopes to use smart grid data to help people save energy — and make money — against customer privacy and data … Read More »
OpenADR — the Berkeley Labs open source system for automating the way utilities do demand response — is already being used to control some 70 megawatts of capacity for big industrial and commercial customers of California’s biggest utilities. Could it expand its reach into homes … Read More »
Updated with comments from Google: There’s a battle looming in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California’s big … Read More »
Another small step for empowered and open access to energy data. Search engine giant Google announced on Wednesday that it has released the API (application programming interface) for its energy tool PowerMeter. Opening up the API means that gadget makers can now freely integrate with … Read More »
Smart meters have been undergoing a bit of a consumer backlash lately — and that could open the door for alternative ways to bring energy data to homeowners. Certainly the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal entity setting smart grid standards, seems … Read More »
Updated: Looks like this is the weekend for some unusual firms to dabble in the increasingly hot home energy management (my take on how Apple could jolt the energy management space here). Minnesota-based manufacturer 3M, which makes such disparate products as post-it notes and medical … Read More »
Sure, buying stuff isn’t exactly good for the environment — all products take energy to make and ship and, thus, contribute to carbon emissions — but Black Friday is upon us, and we’ve decided to put together an Earth2Tech slant on the annual holiday gift guide. … Read More »
Updated: The Obama administration has just funded the rollout of 18 million meters with stimulus funds, but here’s another way to get access to energy data without one of those new digital meters: This morning UK energy management startup AlertMe says it has … Read More »
By Katie Fehrenbacher
Oct. 26, 2009, 7:45am PT
Comments Off
This is looking like a packed week for climate change regulation and government spending meant to remake the energy industry — the Department of Energy just announced new funding for very early stage energy projects, and there will be major debates in the … Read More »
Sounds like the smart grid partnership between search engine Google and conglomerate General Electric could still deliver some real products, according to remarks from GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the Web 2.0 Summit on Tuesday evening. “We will see more collaboration between GE and Google around … Read More »
This week Google announced its first device partner for its energy management tool PowerMeter, which will enable PowerMeter to bypass the smart meter and the utility. Part of the benefit of cutting out the utility is that the device can use an Internet connection to … Read More »
When Google started talking about its energy management web tool PowerMeter earlier this year, a big hurdle quickly became apparent: The search engine giant’s market for the device would be limited to consumers whose utilities are deploying smart meters (meters that have two-digital communication). … Read More »
By some accounts, the build-out of the smart grid could be the biggest driver of wealth within the decade and create an even larger market than the emergence of the Internet. And now, in the early rollout phase, thousands of startups and large tech vendors … Read More »
Over its 3-year lifetime, Cambridge, UK-based home energy management startup AlertMe has managed to develop a slick hardware design and become one of the first startups to sell its gear to customers. In the past several months since the company decided to focus predominantly … Read More »
Among the utilities that have come forward lately to announce deals with energy management software makers — from San Diego Gas & Electric and TXU Energy (working with Google), to Xcel Energy and Sacramento Municipal Utility District (working with Microsoft) — one progressive utility has … Read More »
CNET’s Martin LaMonica raised the interesting question last week: Is there an investment bubble building around the smart grid? He cites the opinions of several investors worried about too much money being invested by venture capitalists, corporations like Cisco and IBM, and even governments. From … Read More »
Curious about what Google’s disruptive online energy management tool Google PowerMeter’s gonna look like on your iGoogle homepage? This afternoon the team behind the search engine giant’s answer to the smart grid showed off some images of the PowerMeter iGoogle gadget (more screen shots below, both … Read More »
The big news this week for Google, and anyone interested in smart meters and energy management, is that the company has partnered with utilities like San Diego Gas & Electric and meter maker Itron for its online energy management tool PowerMeter. But according … Read More »
The news that utilities like San Diego Gas & Electric and incumbent meter maker Itron will be offering Google’s PowerMeter energy tool to their customers offers a glimpse of how the old-skool power industry is starting to be shaped by the new world of the … Read More »
Some utilities have indicated to us that they’ve been uncomfortable with the fact that Google is building software and web tools for energy management and smart meters called PowerMeter. In their eyes, Google’s strong brand could dominate their relationship with the customer. But that … Read More »
If you want to have your say on how more than $4 billion in stimulus funds will be spent on the smart grid, well, you’re too late. The Department of Energy’s comment period, which called for input on how it plans to allocate the grant funds, … Read More »
Lately, when Google.org has gotten involved with the workings of Capitol Hill, it has called for transparency and open standards, and promoted its PowerMeter tool. Today Dan Reicher, Google.org’s director of climate and energy initiatives, put another Google initiative — that of
Thanks to funds from the stimulus package and renewed attention to energy savings, 2009 is the year companies are planning to launch wireless energy dashboards that will sit in your home, monitor energy data from your electricity meter and let you know if you’re being an … Read More »
At our recentGreen:Net conference, we sat down with Google’s Tom Sly, who’s been working on the search engine giant’s energy information tool, PowerMeter. Google’s trying to make the PowerMeter available as fast as possible and best-case scenario is that it will be ready before … Read More »
Saving energy may not sound as fun as, say, stealing cars, shooting zombies or becoming a Guitar Hero. But Adaptive Meter, a startup that presented at our Green:Net conference last week, thinks it can make energy conservation an engaging game. The company, which … Read More »
If “massive” is the first word that comes to mind in describing a supposedly green home, chances are you have an oxymoron on your hands. So before Google cofounder Larry Page gets too far with his plans to build a two-story, 6,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, GreenPoint-rated … Read More »
Former Internet entrepreneurs that have moved into the energy biz are fond of comparing the Net to the power grid. One of their favorite forward-thinking claims is that in a similar way to how the Internet created a market to sell goods via broadband, a smarter … Read More »
Google shook up the smart meter industry this month by announcing it’s developing a web-based energy data tool called PowerMeter. Energy info should be free, easy to read and owned by you — the consumer — says Google. But let’s face it, Google is new … Read More »
Google, with its billions in annual revenue and its constant noise about open standards and free access to information, is hard to ignore when it crashes into an unsuspecting industry. As cell phone companies, publishers, advertisers and software makers have all seen over the years, when … Read More »
By David Ehrlich
Feb. 10, 2009, 8:18am PT
Comments Off
Newark, N.J.’s Public Service Electric and Gas announced today that it wants to put solar panels pretty much everywhere — on utility poles and streetlights, on the roofs of schools and municipal buildings, on public housing, as well as in some ground-mounted systems — all … Read More »
Most Commented
Latest News
- Ecotality sues to stop NRG electric charging network in California
- Whoa: Meet the new billion dollar cleantech fund Inerjys
- Introducing the V-Pole, a connectivity, electricity, utility pole mashup
- A more sustainable cloud through transparency & change
- Why San Francisco is a test bed for transportation tech
Popular Now
