tl;dr

i <3 earthaid.

GOOGLE POWERMETER

It can’t use google without a device or a cooperating utility, so I couldn’t get very far with this one, especially since the little gadgets cost a bunch of bucks. If I was trying to really get into the nitty gritty of saving energy at home on a per-device basis, it would probably be worth it.

MICROSOFT HOHM

Well, two negatives off the bat:

• Hohm can’t connect to any of our utilities and get bill info (I have Centerpoint for gas, Entergy for electricity, and Central Arkansas Water for… well, you know).
• The initial setup is quite lengthy; you have to answer approximately 200 questions about your house, each side, door, window areas, etc., and some of the info I couldn’t find (Like heating/AC ratings).

Nonetheless, I typed in all bill info for electric and gas into Hohm (after figuring out how to convert natural gas centi-cubic feet into therms), and it gave me pretty charts. Seriously, that’s about all I was able to get back out of it. For having to keep up with the system manually, that’s not good.

Based on the home profile you fill out, it does generate a list of to-do items to reduce energy consumption, and the list is sortable by cost-to-implement, cost-savings, and CO2 savings. Yet I found them mostly to be things everyone knows (increase attic insulation, lower temp on water heater, etc).

EARTHAID

I think this one was the best of the three; it is the only site that actually provides incentive to modify behavior. Not just because they offer reward points (because none of which are redeemable within a hundred-mile radius), but rather because of the social aspect of the site; it can compare friends’ energy usage, which is a great idea.

It was also the only one that could actually connect to our utilities: a HUGE plus. It connected to Entergy and Centerpoint accounts easily. It also can track water usage, but Central Arkansas Water does not have online billing available, so no love there.

Also, it’s very direct about savings. One morning, after my latest gas bill came in, I received the message email, in  well-designed, uncluttered email:

We’ve just retrieved the data from your CenterPoint Energy bill for December 20th to January 20th. In December, you used 13800 cubic feet of gas — that’s 37% less than your December baseline, and 84% more than you used in November.

Good stuff. It also forecasts what your usage (and thus bills) will be.

I think we should start an EarthAid group, and all sign up for it, and then pressure Central Arkansas Water to somehow make billing data available to them. And maybe suggest to EarthAid to allow for paying the utilities through the site… that’d be rad.