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Google PowerMeter is one of many Google side projects that don't often get a lot of attention, but PowerMeter is slowly growing to become a bit more than just a hobby for the search giant. Today, Google announced that it has partnered with Current Cost, the largest global supplier of real-time displays for monitoring energy use. Starting today, Current Cost will allow its users in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand to send data about their power consumption directly to Google PowerMeter.

Google PowerMeter is part of a series of efforts by various large and small companies, including Green Goose and Microsoft, to launch better and smarter home energy monitoring services. Today, Google took the next step in its efforts to make PowerMeter a ubiquitous service by launching an API for PowerMeter that allows device manufacturers to create PowerMeter-compatible devices. This, according to Google, will allow hardware manufacturers to integrate "in-home/plug level energy monitoring devices with Google PowerMeter." Thanks to this, you may soon be able to check how much power your lamp or TV is currently using by simply checking the PowerMeter gadget on iGoogle.

A few days ago, a group of enterprising bloggers discovered that Microsoft had just trademarked the name 'Hohm.' Today, we can finally reveal what Hohm is really about. At its core, Hohm is Microsoft's answer to Google's PowerMeter and similar services. Hohm is dedicated to giving consumer's information about potential energy savings, while at the same time connecting those consumers whose energy providers already use smart meter technology with real-time information about their own energy consumption at home.

It's also noteworthy that Hohm was developed on top of Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform.

Google.org has just announced an international roster of partners for their PowerMeter gadget.

PowerMeter is "a Google gadget that can show consumers their personal electricity consumption right on a home computer," according to today's announcement on the Google Blog. "Our software relies on 'smart meters' (or other metering devices) as a data source. Over the past several months we've been looking to partner with utilities that are installing (or have already installed) this equipment in their customers' homes. We're energized by our very first Google PowerMeter partners."