According to Reuters Google is shortly to roll out free software which allows consumers to track their home electricityA form of energy having magnetic, radiant and chemical effects. Electric current is created by a flow of electrons. use and improve energy efficiencyUsing less energy/electricity to perform the same function. Programs designed to use electricity more efficiently - doing the same with less. in a bid to help mitigate global warmingHuman activities are adding greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, to the atmosphere, which are enhancing the natural greenhouse effect. While the natural greenhouse effect is keeping average temperature on earth at about +15°C, this enhanced greenhouse effect ....

Dan Reicher, Director for Climate ChangeClimate change is a lasting change in weather patterns over long periods of time. It can be a natural phenomena and and has occurred on Earth even before people inhabited it. Quite different is a current situation that is also referred to as climate change, anthropogenic climate change, or ... and EnergyThe ability to perform work, mainly kinetic, potential, thermal energy, but also in forms of gravitational, sound, elastic and electromagnetic energy. Initiatives Google, is currently working with a number of major utilities companies in the United States, Europe and Asia to make this software available as soon as possible to the public. As part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsGreenhouse gas emissions cause dangerous anthropogenic climate change. Emissions include CO2, fluoridated gases, methane which are emitted by human activity such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, and water vapour., Google said in February it would use its software skills for the program that will show home energy consumption(Final) energy consumption includes all energy supplied to to final user and includes all sectors, such as households, industries, agriculture…. in real time on a user’s computer or a telephone.

He also stated that this tool will be available soon and that it will be open source (and therefore free, but that’s nothing new for google tools)

During my research for other green tools and gadgets I found a very interesting Conference and Competition called “Greener Gadgets 2009“. They invited designers to explore the concept of “Greener Gadgets.” This competition aimed at generating outstanding design innovations for greener electronics. The top 50 entries were published online for voting and commenting, and from these the judges will picked the Top 10 to be judged live at the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City on February 27th.

This years winner is the a so-called “Tweet-a-Watt“, which is a special powerUseful energy can be mechanical energy, for example powering a fan. meter that uses  slightly modified “off-the-shelf hardware”, to “tweet” (publish wirelessly) the daily KWH consumed to the user’s Twitter account (Cumulative Killowatt-hours).

I recently heart that a cat twitters therefore I am not really surprised that a power meters starts to twitter now For those who have never heart about twitter, I would recommend to enjoy the video below: