Patent ID: 8446625

Claim:
A printing apparatus to be connected to a network, the printing apparatus configured to receive a print instruction with print data from one or more external apparatuses and to execute printing in accordance with the print data, the printing apparatus comprising: a storage unit configured to store a power usage of each of other printing apparatuses during a printing operation, the other printing apparatuses being connected to a power supply system to which the printing apparatus is connected; and a print execution controller configured to: keep track of which of the other printing apparatuses are in printing operation, by receiving messages indicating start and end of the printing operations from the other printing apparatuses; calculate a total of power usages of the other printing apparatuses in printing operation by referring to the power usages stored in the storage unit upon receipt of the print data from any of the external apparatuses; inhibit the printing apparatus from executing the printing operation when an expected power exceeds a predetermined allowable power value, the expected power being calculated as a sum of the calculated total of the power usages of the other printing apparatuses and the power usage of the printing apparatus during the printing operation; and allow the printing apparatus to execute the printing operation when the expected power is equal to or below the predetermined allowable power value; wherein the print execution controller is further configured such that if the print execution controller allows the printing apparatus to execute the printing operation and if the received print data exceeds a predetermined allowable data amount, the printing operation is executed in a split printing mode on a unit-by-unit basis.