Google is pulling the plug on its PowerMeter electricity-monitoring tool
due to poor uptake, a sign of how tough it is to make money in home
energy software.
In a company blog today,
Google said that PowerMeter and Google Health Web applications were
trailblazers as products, but just didn't catch on as hoped.
"We're pleased that PowerMeter has helped demonstrate the importance of
this access and created something of a model. However, our efforts have
not scaled as quickly as we would like, so we are retiring the service,"
wrote Bill Weihl, Google Green Energy czar. The service will be
suspended September 16, giving people time to export their data.
Google launched PowerMeter
two years ago through its philanthropic arm as a Web application that
can collect information from smart meters to show consumers detailed
information on electricity use. With more detail, people can take steps
to cut down on power.
As recently as April of this year, Weihl said in an interview
that Google planned to keep developing and offering the product even
though home electricity is a "complicated ecosystem." Google's former
director of climate change initiatives, Dan Reicher, last year said that
Google planned to add features, such as water and natural gas monitoring, as well as allowing consumers to tie into peak-power-shaving programs.
Google offered PowerMeter through utility partnerships and had made
deals with electricity monitor device makers so that they could view
real-time usage data from PowerMeter on a PC or smartphone.
But cracking beyond the group of energy-conscious consumers has proved elusive--and Google is not alone in that regard.
Microsoft earlier this year told CNET that it plans to refocus its Hohm residential energy management
application onto electric-vehicle charging through a partnership with
Ford. Hohm was similar to PowerMeter but provided specific
recommendations on how to make a home more energy efficient.
At the same time, there are dozens of other companies, including many
start-ups, hoping to build energy management systems to improve home
energy control and efficiency.
Whether PowerMeter's demise will have a chilling effect remains to be
seen, but even before Google's decision to unplug PowerMeter, smart-grid
companies and home energy-monitoring companies have recognized that
they need to develop simpler, low-cost products to penetrate beyond a small niche of consumers.
Wattvision, a start-up with a Web energy-monitoring application, said
that Google's departure didn't affect its plans, but was thankful that
Google set the stage for others.
"The attention that the Google brand brought to our space was quite a
boon for us, as well. Without Google, we'll continue to work hard, make
our customers happy, and generate our own excitement," the company wrote in its blog.