GoogleMeter bypass Utility with TED 5000

Until now, Google has been working with utilities that are installing smart meters that communicate usage information in regular intervals rather than just once a month. Now, a person can use PowerMeter without having to have a smart meter installed.

Before now, the Google PowerMeter software could only estimate your energy use, unless you happened to be a customer of the handful of utilities it was working with. That has changed. The company announced yesterday that they have partnered with The Energy Detective (TED), allowing you to bypass your utility and get regularly-updated energy use information.

The TED 5000 device costs about $200 and you'll need an electrician to install it, but once that's done, it wil connect to the internet and feed all your electricity use to the PowerMeter program online at home or via iGoogle on your mobile phone. The TED device sends updates to PowerMeter every 10 minutes compared to regular smart meters which often only dispaly processed energy data only once a day.

People who already own a TED device can download an upgrade to start using the PowerMeter software.

This partnership is meeting a great need because it lets consumers review their electricity use in real-time, over their own broadband connection, allowing them to make changes to their current energy consumtption instead of making changes in hindsight. But the companies aren't looking to exclude power companies. TED and Google are both still working with utilities to build smart meter networks.

The advantages of bypassing the smart meter aren’t just the quick deployment times of these energy management devices. The set-up could also offer the customer more detailed and quicker energy data than data coming off of smart meters. Devices like TED are connected to the user’s home broadband connection and, working with PowerMeter, can be quickly displayed to the customer in almost real-time. TED 5000 will show energy data via PowerMeter every 10 minutes.

via http://twitter.com/AltEnergyWebPar/status/4668924522

Sources:
http://ecogeek.org/efficiency/2970-google-powermeter-finds-a-gadget-partner
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10368371-54.html
http://earth2tech.com/2009/10/05/googles-powermeter-bypasses-the-smart-meter-signs-up-first-gadget-partner/

EDIT: Official Google Blog: Google PowerMeter's first device partner