Patent ID: 7765035

Claim:
A method of reducing power consumption by participants in a load reduction program, comprising the steps of: determining in a load management host a need to reduce power consumption; the load management host accessing a database storing power consumption related data associated with a plurality of power consumers participating in the load reduction program; the load management host selecting a specific power consumer in the database from the plurality of power consumers, the specific power consumer identified in the database as participating in the load reduction program; communicating from the load management host a load reduction request to an on-premise processor associated with the specific power consumer; recording a load reduction notification indication associated with the specific power consumer in the power consumption related data in the database, including information regarding a typical load reduction amount by the specific power consumer determining whether a load threshold of aggregate load reduction has been reached for the plurality of power consumers as reflected by a cumulation of typical load reduction amounts; and in response to the determining at the host that the threshold of aggregate load reduction has been reached, refraining from issuing any further load reduction requests to the plurality of power consumers participating in the load reduction program.