Patent ID: 7715951

Claim:
A system for managing consumption of power supplied by an electric utility to a plurality of power consuming devices, the system comprising: one or more client devices, each client device operating, in part, responsive to received power control messages and including: at least one controllable device interface facilitating communication of power control instructions to at least one controllable device, each controllable device selectively enabling and disabling a flow of electric power to a power consuming device of the plurality of power consuming devices responsive to the power control instructions; and a device control manager operably coupled to the at least one controllable device interface, the device control manager generating the power control instructions responsive to the received power control messages; and a server communicatively coupled to the electric utility and the one or more client devices, the server including: a command processor operably to receive power control commands from the electric utility and issue power control event messages responsive thereto, at least one of the power control commands requiring a reduction in an amount of electric power consumed by the plurality of power consuming devices; an event manager operable to receive the power control event messages, maintain at least one power management status relating to each client device and issue power control event instructions responsive in the power control event messages; a database for storing, on a per client device basis, information relating to power consumed by the plurality of power consuming devices during operation of the plurality of power consuming devices; and a client device manager operably coupled to the event manager and the database, the client device manager selecting from the database, based on the information stored in the database, at least one client device to which to issue a power control message indicating at least one of an amount of electric power to be reduced and identification of at least one controllable device to be instructed to disable a flow of electric power to one or more associated power consuming devices responsive to receipt of a power control event instruction requiring a reduction in a specified amount of electric power.