Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A system comprising:a means for defining and identifying a plurality of regions in a facility;a plurality of sensors wherein each sensor produces a load measurement indicating the amount of energy currently consumed in one of the plurality of regions of the facility;a means for determining independent variable values wherein the independent variables comprise outdoor temperature, date, time of day, and regions of the facility;a means for computing a plurality of independent variable measurements indicating the values of the independent variables at different times and for computing a plurality of load measurements indicating values of sensed load measurements at different times;a database storing the load measurements and the plurality of independent variable measurements as historical data;a similar data selector wherein the similar data selector is a Euclidean distance based similar data selector that accepts a recent measurement and produces similar historical data from the historical data, wherein the similar historical data comprises load measurements and independent variable measurements taken when the independent variable measurements were similar to the recent measurement; anda baseline estimation module that accepts the historical load data set and produces at least one baseline estimate for the recent measurement. 2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a periodic trigger that triggers the production of the similar historical data set and the at least one baseline estimate on a set period. 3. The system of claim 1 wherein the independent variables further comprise workday versus non-workday. 4. The system of claim 1 wherein the independent variables further comprise occupancy. 5. The system of claim 1 wherein the baseline estimation module comprises a linear regression model. 6. The system of claim 1 further comprising a graphical user interface wherein the recent measurement is a current independent variable measurement such that the at least one baseline estimate is at least one current baseline estimate; and wherein the graphical user interface presents the plurality of regions with an indication of the difference between the current load measurement and the current baseline estimate for the plurality of regions. 7. A system comprising:a means for defining and identifying a plurality of regions in a facility;a plurality of sensors wherein each sensor produces a sensed load measurement indicating the amount of energy currently consumed in one of the plurality of regions of the facility;a means for determining independent variable values wherein the independent variables comprise outdoor temperature, date, time of day, and regions of the facility;a means for computing a plurality of independent variable measurements indicating the values of the independent variables at different times and for computing a plurality of load measurements indicating values of sensed load measurements at different times;a database storing the load measurements and the independent variable measurements as historical data;a similar data selector that accepts a recent measurement, wherein the similar data selector is a Euclidean distance based similar data selector and a reference period and produces similar reference period data from the historical data;a baseline estimation module that accepts the similar reference period data and produces at least one reference period baseline estimate for the recent measurement;a drift detection means for identifying baseline drift by comparing the reference period baseline estimates to the load measurements, wherein said baseline drift is a difference that slowly changes over a given time period such that said difference will not be recognizable upon short term comparisons of baseline estimates to on-going load measurements. 8. The system of claim 7 further comprising at least one drift detection rule wherein the drift detection means comprises a rule based drift detection means. 9. The system of claim 7 wherein the independent variables further comprise workday versus non-workday. 10. The system of claim 7 wherein the independent variables further comprise occupancy. 11. The system of claim 7 wherein the baseline estimation module comprises a linear regression model. 12. The system of claim 7 further comprising a graphical user interface that presents the at least one region with an indication of the difference between the load measurements and the baseline estimates for the plurality of regions. 13. The system of claim 7 further comprising a graphical user interface that indicates the presence of baseline drift in any of the plurality of regions. 14. The system of claim 7 further comprising:at least one drift detection rule wherein the drift detection means comprises a rule based drift detection means;at least one data selection rule wherein the similar data selector is a rule based similar data selector;a graphical user interface that presents the at least one region with an indication of the difference between the load measurements and the baseline estimates for the at least one region and wherein the graphical user interface also indicates the presence of baseline drift in any of the plurality of regions;wherein the independent variables further comprise workday versus non-workday and building occupancy; andwherein the baseline estimation module comprises a linear regression model. 15. The system of claim 7, further comprising a drift alarm containing a drift amount within an affected region of said facility wherein said drift amount is an average error over an interval of time, such that said drift alarm is triggered when said drift amount is above a preselected value. 16. A system comprising:a means for defining and identifying a plurality of regions in a facility;a means for obtaining a plurality of load measurements for the plurality of regions and covering a plurality of time periods for each region wherein each load measurement is an indication of the amount of energy consumed in one region over a known time period;a means for storing the load measurements;a means for obtaining a plurality of independent variable measurements corresponding to the values of independent variables at known times wherein the independent variables comprise outdoor temperature, date, and time of day, and regions of the facility;a means for storing historical data comprising the load measurements and independent variable measurements;a means for selecting historical data that accepts a recent measurement and produces similar historical data wherein said means for selecting historical data uses a Euclidean distance based selector anda means for producing at least one baseline estimate. 17. The system of claim 16 further comprising a means for determining baseline drift. 18. The system of claim 17 further comprising a means for displaying the baseline drift. 19. The system of claim 16 further comprising a means for displaying the difference between the load measurements and the baseline estimates.