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Astronaut lands as Google's 'energy nerd'

By Si Tingting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-08 15:04

Ed Lu might be one of the most cutting edge fellows you will ever meet.

As a NASA astronaut, Lu flew on almost all the manmade flying objects above earth and beyond it - and he continues to ride new waves of avant-garde technologies. Now a program manager for advanced projects at Google, he has redirected himself to work on the new crucial need of all countries - energy efficiency.

In his last space mission in 2003, Lu spent six months aboard the International Space Station. That experience taught him the importance of energy efficiency because "one of the most critical resources you have on a spacecraft is power", he told China Business Weekly during a recent trip to Beijing to promote Google's newest technologies for energy efficiency.

On the spacecraft, Lu had to monitor its energy use closely and shut things down immediately after they were no longer needed. But that is not the direct reason he turned into an "energy nerd", as his colleagues are calling him.

It all started when Lu bought a hybrid car that has a meter telling him how many miles per gallon he's getting at any moment. "I noticed that my driving efficiency was getting better as weeks and months went by. Then I thought it would be great if I had the same information about my house," he said.

With sponsorship from Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, Lu began a year ago to transform the inspiration from his car into real technology. He now leads a team of Google engineers working on the Google PowerMeter, software that analyzes energy consumption data captured by "smart meters" and translates that into easy-to-understand information so people see where they can reduce energy use.

The widget is still in development and is being tested among select members of Google's own staff before it is introduced to the wider public. According to Lu, he and his colleagues are "addicted" to using the software, watching as electricity use changes on a graph.

"Every morning, they will compare how much electricity they used in the past day and the one who used the most gets upset," Lu said.

After Lu saw the huge spikes caused by his washing machine, he now makes sure each load is full. He also noticed spikes when the air-conditioner turned on even when he was not home, so he made slight adjustments to the timer to better align with his schedule. Now the PowerMeter Lu has been using at his house will help him save $300 a year on utility bills.

Google is pioneering a campaign to provide consumers more information about their personal energy consumption, which is critical to helping consumers save electricity and money.

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He compared an open-ended utility bill that arrives at the end of the month to shopping in a grocery store where the food has no price tags and you only get a total bill for many weeks of food shopping.

A bill you get a month later doesn't remind you to shop carefully or turn appliances off, but changes on a graph do, he said.

"In a world where everyone has detailed understanding of their home energy use, we can find all sorts of ways to save energy and lower electricity bills," Lu said in testimony on a smart grid before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in March.