Green Blog
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Largest supplier of energy monitors now compatible with Google PowerMeter
5/24/10
Today we are excited to offer a new way for many more people to access Google PowerMeter: our new Featured Device partner
Current Cost
- the largest global supplier of real time displays for monitoring energy use. Having already sold one million energy monitoring devices, Current Cost
will now offer devices
that are compatible with Google PowerMeter. They will also offer upgrades to existing customers so that they too can monitor their energy consumption anywhere online with our software.
Devices that integrate with Google PowerMeter will first be available in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Current Cost uses the Google PowerMeter API that
we released back in March
and
joins others
as a Featured Device partner that allows customers to understand their energy use. Our partnership is another example of hardware meeting our software to help customers save energy and money.
E.ON
, one of the UK’s largest utilities, has also teamed up with Current Cost to offer its customers a Google PowerMeter compatible energy monitor as part of its free “
Energy Fit Starter Pack
.”
Current Cost estimates that their customers have already saved close to 400,000 tons of CO2 through monitoring their electricity use. One Australian restaurant
recently learned
that something as easy as turning off their coffee pots each night would save them $3,000 dollars per year.
Curious how you can start saving?
Sign up
for Google PowerMeter today.
Posted by Scott Coleman, Partnership Development Manager, Google.org
Not merely tilting at windmills — investing in them too
5/3/10
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
to bring you information on other green efforts at Google)
On Friday we made our first direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project — two wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 55,000 homes. These wind farms, developed by
NextEra Energy Resources
, harness power from one of the
world’s richest wind resources
in the North Dakota plains and use existing transmission capacity to deliver clean energy to the region, reducing the use of fossil fuels. Through this $38.8 million investment, we’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy — in a way that makes good business sense, too.
To reach a clean energy future, we need three things: effective policy, innovative technology and smart capital. Through our philanthropic arm Google.org, we’ve been pushing for
energy policies
that strengthen the innovation pipeline, and we’ve been dedicating resources to developing
new technologies
, including making investments in early-stage renewable energy companies such as
eSolar
and
AltaRock
. Smart capital includes not only these early-stage company investments, but also dedicated funding for utility-scale projects. To tackle this need, we’ve been looking at investments in renewable energy projects, like the one we just signed, that can accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects.
A clear windy day at the Ashtabula II wind farm
We’re excited about this first project investment because it uses some of the latest wind turbine technology and control systems to provide one of the lowest-cost sources of renewable energy to the local grid. The turbines can continuously adjust the individual blade pitch angles to achieve optimal efficiency and use larger blades with 15 percent more swept area than earlier generations, allowing capture of even more wind energy for each turbine. The control systems for these wind farms are also advanced and dynamic, allowing for remote 24/7 monitoring and operation to ensure maximum turbine up-time and power production. A couple of us got a chance to climb 80 meters up one of the 113 turbines to see firsthand how the rotating blade motion goes through a gearbox to turn the generator that makes the electricity. The climb to the top also provided a great view of the entire wind farm (don’t worry — we all had harnesses and turned the turbine off!).
My colleague Matt takes a rest after the 80-meter climb
We look forward to finding more opportunities to invest in renewable energy projects that use the latest technologies to push the envelope for delivering low cost clean energy. We’ll let you know what we find.
Posted by Rick Needham, Green Business Operations Manager
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