Microsoft to bring energy savings Hohm

Microsoft is moving into the energy use-recording business, with a new application designed to tell consumers how much electricity they are using.

Microsoft Hohm uses technology licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy. The free online application, which has not yet been made officially available, will take data from consumers where available and use it to help them assess their energy use. Such data will include house features, electricity usage patterns and appliances. Where the information is unavailable, it will use local and national averages.

The system will use this data to make practical recommendations to consumers, including placing new caulking on windows or installing a programmable thermostat, said the company in a statement.

The system is designed to integrate with energy meters so that it can gather data from customers transparently. To this end, the software giant is working with four utilities: Xcel Energy, Puget Sound Energy, Seattle City Light and Sacramento Municipal Utility District. It will create a software development kit for utilities to work with.

Significantly, the software giant says that Hohm will use the Microsoft advertising platform, indicating that there may be a commercial element to the system. It will also take advantage of its recently launched Bing search engine.

The move comes just weeks after Google announced its own set of partnerships around a similar system, called Google Power Meter. It, too, is publishing a set of APIs designed to enable utilities to look into its own systems, feeding data back to its servers, and enabling consumers to monitor their own power use.