Saving Energy Goes Social on Facebook

Facebook, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Opower are developing a new Facebook application that helps users compare energy use and share energy-savings tips. Photo: Opower

Would you be more likely to conserve energy at home if you saw your friends posting about their energy savings on Facebook?

That’s the thinking behind a new “social energy” application that will launch next year for 4 million utility customers, including all Chicago residents.

Today, Facebook, environmental advocacy group the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and energy information software company Opower announced a partnership to jointly develop an app that harnesses the power of social networking to motivate consumers to use energy more efficiently.

The app will allow utility customers who choose to participate to benchmark their home’s energy use against a national average of similar homes, compare their energy use with friends, discover and share energy-savings tips and enter energy-saving competitions.

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The first utilities to sign on to this new app include Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), which serves Chicago and the northern Illinois area, as well as the City of Palo Alto, Calif., and Glendale Water and Power in Glendale, Calif. The 4 million customers served by these utilities will have the option to use the new social energy app in early 2012. Several other utilities are expected to announce their participation in the coming weeks, according to Opower.

“This application will give users the ability to share their personal energy use information with like-minded individuals – fostering more conversations about energy savings and engaging a broader segment of the population – one that may have had little interest in energy efficiency to date,” said Dan Yates, co-founder and CEO of Opower, in a statement.