Microsoft unveils home power conservation website

By Scott DiSavino

NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday unveiled its Hohm website designed to help residential power consumers save money and reduce their environmental impact by conserving energy.

Microsoft has been selling technology to the energy industry for years and is now targeting the home power market as the weak economy forces consumers to find ways to save money and the government prepares to mandate the use of renewables and energy efficiency to curb carbon emissions.

"Conservation is the cheapest source of energy," Troy Batterberry, product manager for Hohm, told Reuters. If consumers use less power, he said, utilities will not need to build as many new polluting power plants. Everyone saves money.

Hohm uses complicated algorithms to analyze information provided by consumers and participating utilities to help them better understand their power usage, get recommendations and save money.

Those recommendations can include replacement of a thermostat, purchase of a new refrigerator and, maybe in the future, the installation of solar panels on the roof.

Batterberry estimated consumers could save about 5 percent to 10 percent on their energy bills, depending on how many recommendations they follow.

Microsoft Hohm is available for free to all 120 million households in the United States, whether their utility is a partner or not. Microsoft is partnering with utilities and meter vendors to capture information about consumer power use.

Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) this year rolled out a similar program called PowerMeter, which is available to a limited group of customers served by partner utilities. Google plans to expand PowerMeter this year.