Google on Wednesday announced that eight companies from the United States, Canada and India have agreed to use a software tool developed by Google engineers that can help consumers save energy and cut electricity bills.

The companies include Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited of Canada and India's Reliance Energy. Other six companies are located in the U.S. states of California, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky.

They are Google's first partners on PowerMeter, a software tool that enables consumers to receive their home electricity consumption information almost in real time right from their computers.

"Our initial partners include utilities with millions of customers as well as smaller ones," Google said in a posting on its company blog.

"For now, Google PowerMeter is only available to a limited group of customers, but we plan to expand our roll out later this year," it added.

According to Google, consumers could use PowerMeter to figure out how much energy is used by different appliances or household activities and optimize their energy use.

Citing studies, the company said access to home energy information may result in savings from 5 percent to 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.

(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2009)