Patent ID: 8869546

Claim:
A refrigerator comprising: a fresh food compartment; a freezer compartment; one or more power consuming features configured to respectively cool the fresh food compartment and the freezer compartment to an operational setpoint temperature; and a controller operatively connected to the one or more power consuming features of the refrigerator and configured to at least: process signals received from an external associated energy supplying utility indicative of a current state of the external associated energy supplying utility; and in response to a signal received from the associated utility indicative of a forthcoming rate increase period, automatically and without user input, process the signal to reduce power consumption of the refrigerator by at least: prior to a rate increase period, effectuate cooling of at least one of the fresh food compartment and the freezer compartment by controlling a temperature change, at a first rate governed by the controller, from a user selected setpoint temperature to a first targeted setpoint temperature below the user selected setpoint temperature; during the rate increase period, establish a second targeted setpoint temperature of at least one of the fresh food compartment and the freezer compartment above the user selected setpoint temperature; and after the rate increase period, reduce the second targeted setpoint temperature of at least one of the fresh food compartment and the freezer compartment back to the user selected setpoint temperature, and control, at a second rate governed by the controller, the change from the second targeted setpoint temperature back to the user selected setpoint temperature, the second rate being a constant rate defined by a set number of degrees per minute to smooth out and reduce energy demands occurring after the rate increase period.