Alphabet’s “Renew Home” company brings power grid data to your smart home

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is launching a new company called “Renew Home.” The new company will pull in some other projects from Nest and the rest of Alphabet to become a supposed one-stop shop for power savings and clean energy usage. The core concept is partnering with power companies to obtain data about the current condition of the power grid and using that data to change consumer habits. The new company is bankrolled by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), an Alphabet venture capital firm.

The first existing service getting pulled into Renew Home is Nest Renew. This service for Nest Thermostats uses power company data to tell consumers how their electricity is being generated and what it costs. That data lets your thermostat do things like automatically shift heating and cooling to times of day when energy is cheaper or cleaner, and shows various reports about the cleanness of the energy you’ve been using. (Nest’s feature that lets utility companies remotely take control of your thermostat, Rush Hour Rewards, does not seem to be part of Renew Home.)

Another Alphabet service being pulled into Renew Home is OhmConnect, which is the same basic idea as Nest’s grid data-power thermostat adjustments but for more than just your thermostat. OhmConnect is compatible with a very small list of smart devices, like Nest-rival Ecobee and Honeywell thermostats, TL-Link’s “Kasa” smart home system, and Tesla vehicles. The backbone of the service appears to be the in-house “OhmPlug” smart outlet, which can monitor the energy usage of anything that plugs into the wall. By seeing that you’ve turned these smart devices during peak usage times, OhmConnect offers people rewards like gift cards or cash for not using power when the grid is at capacity.

This might seem strange in most places where the power grid can keep up with demand, but in places like Google’s home in California, where the solution to power supply problems is rolling blackouts, anything to lessen power usage is probably helpful.

Alphabet’s shuffling of its power-saving programs doesn’t seem like it will change much for consumers, considering these programs already exist, and the press release says, “We expect a seamless transition for customers currently on the OhmConnect and Google Nest Renew platforms.” The merger sounds like it will make things easier for power companies, though. Today, power companies would have to sign two different data-sharing deals with two different Alphabet entities, so bringing that all under one roof makes sense. In typical Google fashion, Google’s Nest Thermostats are only listed as “coming soon” on OhmConnect’s “Link devices” page, so I guess they will be compatible after this merger.

The deal should close in 2024. Even though Alphabet is just shuffling around projects internally, the press release notes the deal is “subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.”