By Bart King
Internet giant Google this week introduced a prototype web application that displays real-time data about a home’s energy use. In theory, if you have a smart meter on your house or business, PowerMeter can track how much electricity your appliances use—and at what cost—for display on your homepage, right beside your weather forecast or stock quotes.
Research shows that providing consumers with detailed information about their electricity usage triggers a reduction in electricity demand. But I don’t think the do-gooders at Google have gone far enough. I don’t just want to know how much electricity I’m using; I want to see how much my neighbors are using, too—and let’s throw in water and gas while we’re at it.
Sure, there are privacy issues involved—so we’ll probably have to let people opt in. But the idea is to get a little friendly competition going.
An interesting report published last fall by an Oxford cultural anthropologist asserted that greater visibility of community habits is a key to persuading individuals to adopt less energy intensive lifestyles. The author, Dr. P. Chenevix Trench, suggests this approach is more effective than environmental education campaigns, which she claims are creating a backlash and actually driving people away with “green guilt.”
Instead of trying to create “socially motivated consumers,” she suggests focusing on making environmental needs part of the culture of consumption that defines community and identity. It’s heady stuff, more suited for a psychology textbook than a TV commercial, but I agree that a more subtle approach may be needed to reach independent-minded, freedom-loving Americans.
