Patent ID: 7778734

Claim:
A method for controlling energy use in a building, comprising: measuring overall energy use in a building or a portion thereof during a fixed period forming initial energy use, wherein the fixed time period is the initialization period; storing the initial energy use in a baseline database; measuring overall building energy use during a time period following the initialization period to form a current energy use and identification of type of occupant-operated electrical appliances by analyzing at least one of start-up or shut-down power consumption characteristics as reported by an appliance-type sensor; storing the current energy use in a current-use database; modelling a level of activity by building occupants by comparing the baseline database with the current-use database to form a model of patterns of behaviour of the occupants; and utilizing a controller to automatically control the operation of heating or cooling the building according to the model of the patterns of behaviour of the occupants and the identification of type of occupant-operated electrical appliances by analyzing at least one of start-up or shut-down power consumption characteristics as reported by the appliance-type sensor.