Facebook announced Tuesday the release of its long awaited social energy app, which allows users to more easily measure and share information about home energy consumption.
The social network first announced the development of the social energy app in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Opower, an energy management software company, in October 2011.
The app — which leverages the power of word-of-mouth, and Facebook’s social platform, in order to encourage behavior change regarding energy consumption — connects more than 20 million homes in 16 participating territories across the U.S. It enables users to directly connect to their utility company, and then share information about their savings with other users.
Users simply go to the website Opower and log in through their Facebook account to set up the app.
“Facebook was designed to enable people to connect, share and multiply their impact,” said Marcy Scott Lynn, Facebook Sustainability. “This app is a powerful, easily accessible way for people on Facebook to do just that, inspiring conversations about really important topics – energy and the environment – that might not otherwise have taken place.”
The app is part of a larger trend in tech towards the development an “Internet of things” – the connection of household appliances to the Internet.