Microsoft's announcement that it would join
Google and some other players in the home energy management market with its Hohm monitoring offering could be the foundation for utilities to begin budgeting electricity.
Microsoft is giving away its energy management tool Hohm to consumers and also cutting deals with electric utilities. Google is already in the market and new players, such as eMeter, are entering every day. Theoretically, utility companies could give discounts to those employing the devices, much like many do to customers willing to read their own meters, which would boost the number of monitors in the market.
Providing tools such as Hohm to allow consumers to track their energy consumption is a great way to help them realize exactly how much juice it takes to, say, run that spare refrigerator in the garage. Knowledge is power: By eliminating energy hogs and replacing them with more efficient appliances, precious resources are conserved. If nothing else, it makes us more responsible stewards of our planet.
But it could be something else. What if, down the pike, the U.S. suffers another energy crisis? With millions of energy meters installed, it would be easy for utility companies to see which family or company is the most conservation- minded -- and which uses the most energy. From the beginning of time electric bills have indicated "average neighborhood use" so consumers could see where they stack up. What if the utility company took that average and charged a premium if a family used more? Would there be a similar discount if a family used less?
This is similar to the throttling-back issue in the cable industry. Cable companies throttle back the speeds offered to heavy bandwidth users. Some favor that, noting it creates a level playing ground for all consumers. But others argue that utilities are a monopoly -- there are barriers to entry for the average person -- which means arbitrarily setting limits on usage is unfair.
Congressman Eric Massa recently introduced the Internet Fairness Act that protects consumers from outrageous Internet overcharges and gives the public a voice. Perhaps a similar piece of legislation should be considered to regulate the utility companies before they want to "throttle back" our energy use.
