Most of us have heard the message – reduce your energy consumption. We’re given all sorts of incentives to do this – from the promise of lower utility bills with things like energy saving light bulbs to grants for making our homes more energy efficient.

One thing missing for most of us though is an accurate indicator of how much energy we’re using at any given time. Sure I get a monthly bill from my utility company, and they’ve got some great new graphs showing my consumption month-to-month compared to last year.

But what about right this minute ?

What happens when I turn the light off in the bathroom, or turn off my computers, or swap out regular light bulbs for high efficiency versions ?

Intellectually most of us understand that something happens – we’re presumably lowering our energy consumption by using those spiral light bulbs. In our house, we’ve replace all our light bulbs – but I can’t honestly tell you what , if any difference that is actually making to our energy consumption. And I challenge anyone to decipher those energy graphs on the sides of those light-bulbs packages – good luck.

In my consulting practice one of my mantras is If You Can’t Measure It, Don’t Do It. Yet most of us carry on every day chores in our house with no real conception of how much energy we’re using doing it.

Now if I had a great big gauge in the middle of the wall that showed me, in real time, how my energy consumption changed with actions I took – that would be something.

Given what that would do for room decor, maybe not.

Ironically, most of us have such a thing – except that it’s hard to read and it’s usually outside. Your electricity meter does just that.

When I was 6 I used to love to watch the wheel spin around and imagine what was really going on inside the glass container. But since then (I was 6 in the 60′s) I’ve maybe looked at the electric meter 3 times.

Almost a year ago I blogged about ‘smart meters‘ and how we might see the day soon when meters will interact with us. A great idea, but good luck waiting for that to show up.

Know More. Use Less. Save Money.

Black and Decker today introduced a device that accomplishes the same thing. It’s called The Power Monitor, and you can install yourself.

Basically, its lets you translate what the meter is reading into useful information. Their mantra is “Know More, Use Less, Save Money” . It totally makes sense.

The device won’t solve your energy consumption challenges for you – but it will help you identify where the big power suckers are in your house, and give you real data on how much less power you’re using when you swap out those light bulbs for instance.

The Black and Decker meter can display electricity use in your home minute by minute, in dollars or in Kilo watts.

More on the company’s web site , read the press release, or watch the YouTube video (sorry, they disabled the embed, d’oh).

The company cites a study they commissioned that shows people will reduce their power consumption by up to 20%, just by having real time data.

Hmmm.

I wonder how much that X-Box is using right now…