I first heard about www.myenergy.com from my gas company. They wrote a short blurb about them on either their website or newsletter (I don’t remember which). Anyway, I decided to check the website out.
The gist of the website is that you sign up for a free account, link your online utility accounts (electric, gas, & water), and they keep a running tally on how your doing in regards to conservation. I hear you proclaim, “wait a second, I already know how much I’m spending on utilities!” Good point, but do you know how much your friends are spending or how much other citizens of your city or town are consuming?
The second reason to consider using the website are rewards. Taken verbatim from the website:
How it works
MyEnergy analyzes your past patterns of energy use and makes a prediction of how much energy you’re likely to use in each subsequent month, accounting for variations in weather from the past to the present. When you use less than the prediction, you’ve saved! Here’s how many points you get for your savings:
- Gas 10 points per therm
- Electric 1 point per kWh
-
Water 1 point per hundred gallons (or 10 points per 1,000 gallons)
So far we’ve earned 106 points for doing nothing except the initial sign up and living our daily lives. What can you exchange your points for? That’s hard to say, I think it depends on what state you are in as it seems to be a mix of local and national products & services. For example, one of the rewards is a free one month supply of Popchips for 100 points. I googled around to try and find some details about how much you get and the best I could find in about 30 seconds of searching was that it was a $30 value. That doesn’t sound half bad.
“It all sounds too good to be true, what’s the catch?”
The catch so far as I can tell is that MyEnergy is owned by Nest. Nest is probably best known for its iOS-esque thermostat.
Naturally, there are ads on the website encouraging you to buy Nest products. Also, I would be shocked if Nest isn’t collecting all of this utility data (anonymized hopefully) for their own commercial benefit. If you’re a company specializing in home automation devices that save consumers money then what better way than to offer a website that aims to do just that. “Hey, you spent a lot on your electric bill last month, try getting a new thermostat to help out with that.”
The social nature of the website just ties into the marketing. Does Big Brother knowing how much energy I use every month bother me? Mmmm, let me think that over with a chip… nope. It does not. The only problem that I’ve had with the website so far is that I cannot link my water bill to it. While that is likely the fault of the municipality that I live in, it still bugs me that I cannot link all of my utility accounts (and thus lose out on rewards and being able to peep at others usage).
If you’d like to join the website and friend me click on the button below.
[button link=”http://email.myenergy.com/wf/click?upn=rFj-2Fn6VLqMWXmfDU5VKABT2DuhRcEWX6AkyUnvA2UOP2C-2BCUc7GmPALEjMRt3M-2BJp0mFZLbZkJ5KkaDoaZJthu8NWCzujznpsQrKdMeFWIMEv-2Fo26QNXztoDOt-2FHzGWWpEi-2Bofi1nBayFq7Re6A3kTDsEel6VYqbBwXoOKO7QMdrFXSXXIT604dMVai912jS9QqitoVdsCjvHuLFxjzzkw-3D-3D_O7ROD4svS-2BWtZVG4Rcp0QhBUjocZnvHx8LpqrpdCOiVd0SUvfaSL5I6MsytMUEKb-2BTN45VWg1UglzAArp-2Bg76oaWHUywv18YqBzzmuEHgFTmW36SyXR1UfSFPcZQtMhrwEf1-2F8QUPCrTYcn1-2BOLxNJxm0J9A-2Fl68SXgTOV6nQMLDO3i3BanpU8Jwqyp64TmFUhGxLU-2FbESZfbrNsZmcjQ3RoKYEnXz-2B6JqzFli5VMxFHchtJxT2NSStDQJzNnTnUEDgb9L8TRr19w7UrfsIjNfZsfHA9wOIVXsVNEFVhEbtlUTG12JHaq4SubwI-2BCBcQ ” target=””]Join MyEnergy[/button]