Google PowerMeter Snags First European Utility Partner

Google has expanded its PowerMeter home-energy management software into Europe in its new partnership with German utility Yello Strom. The announcement made this morning on the official Google.org blog marks the ninth utility — and the first European one — to partner with the giant search engine company.

In its blog post about the partnership, Google describes the meeting with Yello Strom’s CEO and the demo of its Sparzähler meter as “fate.” And in a cursory glance at the Sparzähler, it certainly looks like a good match for Google PowerMeter.

For one, it opens Google to the European market. Yello Strom, a subsidiary of Energie Baden-Wurtternberg, one of Germany’s largest energy companies, has more than 1.4 million customers and offers commercial smart meters. It’s Sparzähler meter — meaning savings counter or meter — has broadband connectivity that allows Google PowerMeter users to see 15-minute interval data in nearly real time, according to the Google.org post.

Yello Strom also has a relationship with Google rival Microsoft, as Greentech Media noted. Yello Strom partnered up with Microsoft back in March 2008 at the CeBIT computer trade fair in an effort to design software for its Sparzähler based on Microsoft technologies. A communications module based on Microsoft operating system Windows CE is integrated into the Sparzähler meter to help manage the consumption data. The information is eventually delivered to customers’ PCs.

Microsoft launched its own home-energy monitoring software Hohm earlier this month. And while Hohm and PowerMeter have their differences, as I pointed out in an earlier BNET post, they are competing for the same increasingly-crowded home-energy management market.

This is the first utility where both Microsoft and Google have some sort of partnership. They also are both working with smart meter maker Itron. I’d expect that has both companies scramble to sign on more utilities they’ll continue to bump into each other.

Hohm and PowerMeter have one essential difference: one relies on a smart meter and the other does not, at least not yet.

PowerMeter works by taking information from a smart meter installed in your home, tracking energy consumption and then sending the data to a customer’s iGoogle homepage.

Microsoft uses advanced algorithms licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy. The algorithms help turn the data into easy-to-understand information for the user. Microsoft is working with four utilities to be able to track and analyze energy consumption data directly from your energy provider.

There is all sorts of speculation as to which product is superior or has greater potential for success. With so much competition in the industry, it’s nearly impossible to predict.

As I’ve said before, the battle will heat up as the two companies — and the others out there in the home-energy management mix — vie for a finite number of utilities.

Other BNET posts on home-energy management and smart grid:

• Microsoft’s Hohm Enters Crowded Home-Energy Monitoring Market
• Cisco Securing the Smart Grid
• Trilliant Looks Toward a Year of the Smart Grid
• Google Jumps on the Smart Grid Bandwagon

Image from Google.org/powermeter