Power Meter Orb

Out of town on business last week, we walked into the lobby of the office and ran into the PG & E ambient energy orb sitting on the receptionists desk. Curious, we took a closer look to see what is was all about.

The purpose of the orb is to provide a visual representation of the current load on the grid, manage demand and hopefully avoid brownouts. A red orb means that demand is high and turning off extraneous electronics immediately will help lower demand. A green orb indicates low demand. All you have to do to run the orb is to plug it into a wall outlet. Information is relayed via the 900 MHz broadcast spectrum and as soon as you plug it in, info is automatically received to inform you of the current energy demands. No internet connection or computer required.

Available for $149 here

Comments (7)

Gee, seems like every household should have one of these -- why are they selling it at such high price? They should give it away for free to every PG&E customers.

posted by spiffy on July 18th 2007 at 10:10pm
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So when it turns red do you turn it off to lower the demand on the system?

posted by rich cardiff on July 19th 2007 at 12:12am
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It's a weather ball!

Seriously, the whole energy thing isn't that complicated. Shut down as much as possible in mid- to late afternoon on warm weekdays and try not to run the AC then if you can live without it. That's PG&E's peak usage time, and it's peak partly because their major load comes from businesses, which are all running their AC in mid-afternoon.

posted by wende in the twin cities on July 19th 2007 at 4:43am
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Wende, though that would be the easiest, sometimes having a visual reminder is good, to trip the thought process, especially for those who didn't live through the energy crisis while living in central California. =)

...and I agree with Rich, humorous that it runs on the very thing you may need to cut back on!

posted by kate on July 19th 2007 at 6:08am
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No, I wasn't criticizing -- more musing that behavior which was once common sense, driven by the desire to save money, has become this gadget-intensive "save the earth" movement. It's one sign that people in general have much more disposable income than was the case 30 years ago -- which has to do with lower costs from the international manufacturing and shipping that's now getting not-green criticism.

I'd actually expected the Green site to be much more... well... esoteric. Something happened with consumption patterns between crises, that it's necessary to reinvent so much...

posted by wende in the twin cities on July 19th 2007 at 6:45am
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Does anyone else see that this is not only useless but also increases the grid load?

They should have made it solar powered instead... :)

posted by Pete on July 20th 2007 at 5:00am
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Ha. So they're telling me to unplug my television when it's not on and plug this in?

How many watts does this think suck up?

Who wants to calculate the additional load on the grid should all of their customers get one of these? PG&E needs to install a solar or wind power array to compensate!

posted by Jon_B on July 20th 2007 at 10:33am
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