Cisco tossed its hat into the home energy management market (or HAN, home area network market) yesterday with a new in-home console that will not only give consumers access to energy data, but hypothetically allow them to participate in demand response programs and control a variety of appliances in response to pricing data.  This was the same day we saw a new ~$18M financing round in Consert, a North Carolina based startup with its own home energy management interface that will not only give consumers access to energy data, but hypothetically allow them to participate in demand response programs and control a variety of appliances in response to pricing data.

Did I just cut and paste that description? Indeed.  Intentionally.

To say that it is getting crowded in the home energy management space would be an understatement.  It is a market now inhabited by both well funded venture-backed startups (the likes of Silver Spring via GreenBox, Tendril, Control4, OpenPeak, 4Home, EnergyHub, and on), as well as by the world’s largest technology companies (Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and others).  All this attention for a market that is just beginning to take its first baby steps towards deployment in the field.   And while …

Divining Google’s intentions in the energy management world is a bit like guessing the identity of an individual in a portrait as each little section is revealed piece by piece.  You get a chin here, an ear there, you begin to make out the jawline, and then, ah, there it is…

Between PowerMeter, the company’s wholesale energy trading license, and investments in a handful of cleantech startups such as high altitude wind-catcher  Makani Power, I haven’t quite had my “aha” moment.  However, we did, today, get one more piece of the puzzle.

It was announced that Google is working alongside Spectrum Bridge to help Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative & Telecommunications deploy an AMI system that makes use of unlicensed TV “white space” to send energy data.  This white space spectrum was made available by the national analog-to-digital transition of broadcast television; the transmission of signals over these airwaves seems to be particularly effective in rural areas where topography can be a serious challenge to deploying certain wireless networks.

The press release trumpets Google’s involvement primarily based on PowerMeter:

“In addition, PSREC has also deployed Google’s PowerMeter technology, an energy monitoring tool that helps consumers save energy and money using information provided by a smart meter. With the White Spaces network

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As a technology analyst, I try to remain above the political fray and will rarely weigh in, in a professional capacity, on advocacy issues.  However, with yet another legal battle launched against smart meter deployments, I feel compelled to offer a brief commentary.  The latest challenge to meter upgrades is being waged by my hometown San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera; an ironic challenge given the vast number of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in the city that are now engaged in financing and developing the software and communications infrastructure to control said meters.

Dennis has been an otherwise courageous and commendable City Attorney, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this one and chalk it up to a lack of accurate information.  To clear things up, I would recommend that he give a thorough read to a recent EPRI white paper (courtesty of SmartGridNews) on the efficacy of solid state meters.  The paper does a strong job of summarizing some of the potential reasons why select consumers may see bills rise with the introduction of smart meters.

Data from this paper suggests that reduced registration (i.e. drag on the rotating disks of old electromechanical …