Patent NZ-735120-A (NZ)
Title: Gateway device, demand response system, and program for gateway device
Inventor: MATSUMOTO YOSHIAKI
IPC: H04M11/00
Filed: 2016-01-27
Abstract: A demand response (DR) is used for stably supplying power by way of a consumer adjusting a power use amount or a power generation amount according to a request from a power supplier. In DR in general, a gateway device which relays communication between a power company or an aggregator and a consumer is present between them. Such a gateway device transmits a control request to a predetermined consumer in accordance with a communication protocol different from that for a DR request transmitted from a supplier in response to the DR request. However, the technique used presently in the art may deteriorate a DR-request satisfied rate due to direct increase in processing load for protocol conversion and in communication traffic in networks, accompanied by increase in the number of consumers which are destinations for transmitting control requests. In view of the above problem, the present invention has an object to provide a gateway device, a demand response system, and a program for the gateway device which can increase a DR-request satisfied rate. The invention therefore relates to a gateway device (2) which transmits a control request for control of devices to at least one of a plurality of device groups, in response to a demand response request for adjustment of a power amount, the demand response request being transmitted from an aggregator, the gateway device (2) comprising: a first communication circuit which receives the demand response request from the aggregator in accordance with a first protocol, the demand response request specifying a requested adjustment power amount indicating a power amount by which a current power amount is to be adjusted and a request target candidate which is a device group included in the plurality of device groups and can be a target for the control request; a storage which stores, in advance, a strategy table which stores a plurality of request patterns in which the following are associated with one another for each of predetermined priority ranks: the request target candidate, the requested adjustment power amount, at least one request information item including a request target and a control command to the request target, the request target being a device group which is included in the plurality of device groups and is a target for the control request; a conversion processor (231) which identifies a request pattern having a highest priority rank in the strategy table from among request patterns which match the requested adjustment power amount and the request target candidate specified by the demand response request received by the first communication circuit, and generates, for each of the at least one request information item extracted from the identified request pattern, the control request which includes the request information item; a second communication circuit which transmits the control request generated by the conversion processor (231) to the request target indicated by the request information item included in the control request in accordance with a second protocol different from the first protocol, and receives a response to the control request from the request target; and a learning processor which changes a priority rank of a requested pattern included in the strategy table and identified by the conversion processor (231), based on the response from the request target received by the second communication circuit.