Patent Description:
However, managing demand can be particularly challenging for customers who, in addition to the utility-provided electric power, have additional sources of electric power for their premises, such as photovoltaic solar cells, wind turbine generators, batteries, etc. Unlike the electric power provided by the electric utility, such additional power sources may vary in the amount of electric power that is provided, such as can occur with solar cells on a cloudy day or with a wind turbine during periods with little or no wind. Thus, even if the electricity consumed at a customer premise is steady, the electricity demand placed upon the utility by the customer can vary dramatically as utility-provided power is needed to offset the varying amount of power from the additional source(s). In order to avoid potentially costly peaks in metered demand usage, what is needed is a way to actively manage electricity usage that takes the metered demand into account.

<CIT> describes a device, method, and program for controlling electrical power supply and demand. With that it is possible to create an appropriate plan for requesting a reduction in the amount of electrical power being purchased on the basis of an expectation value for the amount of reduced electrical power being purchased per consumer. The expectation value is determined on the basis of the remaining amount of storage cells for the consumer. An electrical power supply and demand control device has a remaining amount acquisition part and a setting part. The remaining amount acquisition part acquires remaining amount information indicating the remaining amount of storage cells for a consumer. The setting part sets an expectation value for the amount of reduced electrical power being purchased from a grid based on the consumer on the basis of the remaining amount information acquired by the remaining amount acquisition part.

In <CIT> is provided an electric power supply and demand control apparatus including a remaining battery level acquisition unit and a setting unit. The remaining battery level acquisition unit acquires remaining battery level information indicating a remaining battery level of a storage battery of a consumer. The setting unit sets an expectation value of a reduction in power purchase from a system performed by the consumer, on the basis of the remaining battery level information acquired by the remaining battery level acquisition unit. For example, a high expectation value is set for a consumer whose storage battery has a large remaining battery level. According to the present invention, it is possible to create an appropriate plan of a request for a reduction in a power purchase quantity, on the basis of the expectation value of the reduction in power purchase for each consumer determined on the basis of the remaining battery level of a storage battery of the consumer.

<CIT> relates to a method and apparatus for limiting the power demand in heating-ventilation-air conditioning. A central control system includes a central processing unit (CPU) installed in a central location of a facility, and interconnected with a plurality of remote controllers, each located in an associated one of several buildings in the facility and each including a remote microprocessor (RMP) the CPU automatically controlling, simultaneously from the central location, the closed loop operation of individual environmental conditioning systems (ECS) in the several buildings comprising the facility in combination with the RMP associated therewith, and in dependence on the sensed temperature conditions within the living spaces associated with each system. A watt meter measures the total power usage of the facility in kilowatt hours (KWH) and provides signal information representative of the instantaneous power usage to an RMP associated therewith. The CPU receives the power usage signal information from the RMP, and provides in response thereto, a predicted peak average power demand signal value in each demand interval of time over which the usage is monitored by the electric utility. The CPU compares the predicted peak average power demand signal with a monthly demand limit (MDL) signal and provides in response to a predicted signal value greater than the MDL value, load shed command signals to each of the RMPs associated with ECS, each RMP providing a turn off of selected one, or all of the ECS associated therewith, in dependence on the load shed command signals from the CPU.

<CIT> describes a demand control device. The demand control device includes a predicted value calculating unit arranged to calculate a predicted value of a power consumption integrated value for each one of a plurality of demand time intervals including a current demand time interval and a predetermined number of demand time intervals subsequent to the current demand time interval based on performance data stored in a power database at the start of the demand time interval, and a control unit arranged to control appliances based on the predicted value calculated by the predicted value calculating unit for each one of the plurality of demand time intervals and on a pre-set target value.

<CIT> relates to peak shaving using energy storage. Methods for controlling an energy storage device to reduce peak power demand at a site are provided. In one embodiment, load data corresponding to a load in a utility grid-connecting energy generation (EG) system is received. The load data may be sampled at a first predetermined interval, and the EG system may include an energy storage device. A load threshold level is received, and a discharge control signal is generated. The discharge control signal may be generated when the measured load is at or above the load threshold level. The control signal may be applied to the measured load for a second predetermined interval that is longer than the first predetermined interval.

Embodiments of the present invention are generally directed to a meter that manages electricity usage for a utility customer based on the metered demand. In an exemplary embodiment, an electricity meter determines a value for a customer's electricity demand during defined demand intervals using an application or other logic executing in the electricity meter (sometimes referred to as the "Demand Manager" application). In the event that that the demand exceeds a limit that the customer has set, the meter will start shedding the electrical load by issuing corresponding commands to the customer's load control devices, such as thermostats and load control switches. Once the meter has issued one or more load-reducing commands, it monitors the resulting electricity demand to determine if the demand has been reduced to a level to stay within the customer-configured limits for the demand interval. If the electricity demand still seems to exceed the limit (or is forecasted to exceed the limit), the meter issues additional load-reducing commands to further reduce the customer's electricity demand for utility-provided electric power. In some instances, a customer's demand for utility-provided electric power is determined not only by their amount of electricity consumption, but also by the amount of electricity supplied to their premise by additional power sources, such as photovoltaic solar cells, wind turbine generators, batteries, etc. In some embodiments, the meter measures demand and usage that is in excess of the electrical power supplied by the additional power sources (sometimes referred to as "net demand" and "net usage," respectively).

With reference to <FIG>, shown is an exemplary metered environment <NUM> in which a utility customer can manage her or his electricity demand. The metered environment <NUM> includes an electricity meter <NUM> that meters electricity demand and usage for a customer premise. The metered environment <NUM> also includes various electrical load managing devices, such as a thermostat 105a and load control switches 105b-c, that are capable of adjusting (i.e., shedding and/or restoring) electricity usage of other on-premise devices to affect demand. For example, the thermostat 105a may manage temperature set points and other operating modes of a heat pump for a home, while a load control switch 105b-c may manage operation of a vehicle charger, clothes dryer, water heater, etc. The load managing devices <NUM> can receive commands from the meter <NUM> to shed and/or restore electrical load. The meter may communicate with the load managing devices <NUM> using Wi-Fi; RF mesh networking, such as defined by ZigBee and/or IEEE <NUM>. <NUM>; Z-Wave; Power-line Communication (PLC); and/or other communication technologies and protocols. In some embodiments, the metered environment <NUM> also includes additional power sources (not shown), such as photovoltaic solar cells, wind turbine generators, batteries, etc., that provide power for a customer premise, in addition to the utility-provided power that is metered by the meter <NUM>. In still other embodiments, a metering device that implements the Demand Manager application, such as the meter <NUM>, may be placed at the transformer level of the utility provider, thereby enabling electricity demand management for possibly multiple customers within a geographic area.

A utility customer may manage configuration of the electricity demand management functionality of the meter <NUM> using a computing device <NUM>, such as a smartphone, desktop computer, laptop computer, etc. The computing device <NUM> may communicate directly with the meter <NUM> via Wi-Fi and/or other communication protocols, or the customer may configure their meter <NUM> indirectly via a cloud computing interface. The electric utility provider may also communicate with the meter <NUM> to obtain and/or configure various data on the meter, such as data associated with electricity usage and demand. For example, a utility provider may configure the length of demand intervals (e.g., <NUM>. , or <NUM>. ) during which electricity demand for a customer is evaluated, the various billing rates that correspond to when/how demand should be tracked and how it is to be billed, etc. For instance, billing rate A may correspond to demand-based pricing and the utility provider schedules rate A to be in effect from <NUM> P. to <NUM> P. Monday-Friday, whereas the remainder of the time billing rate B is in effect whereby electricity is billed based on usage and demand is not considered. When the utility provider seeks to change schedules or other aspects associated with customer billing, this data is stored by the meter <NUM> where it may be used to inform electricity demand/usage decisions according to the portion of the configuration made by the customer.

Shown in <FIG>, is an exemplary user interface for an application with which a customer may configure the electricity demand management functionality of their meter <NUM> using a computing device <NUM>. In some embodiments, a portion of the parameters shown in the user interface may be configured by the utility provider and may or may not also be configurable by the customer. The tables below further describe the possible parameters presented in the user interface.

The table below further describes possible parameters for load control devices that may be managed by the meter <NUM> to shed and/or restore electrical load.

In some embodiments, when the meter <NUM> is appropriately configured, Demand Manager will make decisions to shed or restore electrical load based on the results of the calculated forecasted demand and the configured demand target. The inputs to this calculation include the following metrics which can be provided by the metrology module in the meter:.

The equation for forecasted demand is given as follows:
<MAT>.

The forecasted demand estimates the demand value for the current demand interval, taking into account the demand thus far for the interval and assuming the instantaneous demand will continue for the remainder of the interval. It should be noted that in other embodiments, the meter <NUM> can make decisions based on other demand values, such as instantaneous demand, rather than forecasted demand.

Demand Manager business logic is controlled by the following configurable values:.

Below are possible use cases for the meter <NUM> configured for managing electricity demand (via Demand Manager) under the following configuration:.

To generalize the above use cases, an exemplary meter <NUM> may perform the various tasks of Demand Manager using the following business logic:.

When the meter <NUM> is configured to generate event messages, the messages may contain information such as shown in the table below:.

Claim 1:
A system for managing electrical consumption of a load device (<NUM>), the system including:
a load managing device (<NUM>) capable of adjusting the electrical consumption of the load device (<NUM>), and
a processor configured with code to perform operations comprising:
receiving information describing a quantity of electricity received by the load device (<NUM>) from an electrical utility provider (<NUM>);
determining that the portion of the received energy is received during a local demand interval (<NUM>), wherein the local demand interval (<NUM>) has i) a local duration and a local start time that are modified based on a provider duration of a provider demand interval (<NUM>) associated with the electrical utility provider (<NUM>) and ii) an interval guard time at a start of the local demand interval, wherein the processor does not consider shedding load during the guard time;
determining a forecasted consumption (<NUM>) of the load device (<NUM>) based on the portion of the received energy received during the local demand interval (<NUM>) and on a quantity of time remaining in the local duration of the local demand interval (<NUM>);
based on a comparison of the forecasted consumption (<NUM>) to a demand threshold (<NUM>) associated with the local demand interval (<NUM>), determining that the forecasted consumption (<NUM>) exceeds the demand threshold (<NUM>); and
responsive to determining that the forecasted consumption (<NUM>) exceeds the demand threshold, adjusting the electrical consumption of the load device (<NUM>) unless the forecasted consumption exceeds the demand threshold only during the guard interval.