Use Twitter to conserve energy with Tweet-a-Watt
Efficient use of energy will have a big part to play in reducing demand on fossil fuels. But efficiency doesn’t just mean making sure you are using lower powered lamps and cars with a high mpg. It also means being aware of how much energy you are using and understanding how that translates into cost to your pocket.
I came across this product called Tweet-a-Watt that monitors the electricity consumption of whatever device you plug it into and then posts to your Twitter account each day how much power you have been using. I thought this was the start of an interesting idea.
Given the fact that it only works on the one device that it is plugged into it is still a bit of a toy. If their was a product that could monitor the electricity consumption of your entire house and could communicate with Twitter then I could see this sparking off lots of conversation and debate. Perhaps people would compete to reduce their energy load. Ultimately it would improve understanding of what are the big energy loads in your house and how can you minimise their use.
Utilities are getting interested in this kind of monitoring by using more advanced technology as it allows them to track all sorts of dynamics and trends such as load peeks by location. Smart grid and Advanced Meter Infrastructure such as this is likely to really take off in the next few years and I think it is important that utilities allow individual households access to the information on their own electricity consumption.
Google is also working on a product that will allow access to this kind of information via the internet. The Google PowerMeter is in a testing phase and will need your property already to be using a smart meter for it to work. Very few properties actually have this already installed so it is going to take some time before we all benefit.
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