Patent ID: 8626009

Claim:
An electric power control apparatus for performing electric power control on a plurality of information processing apparatuses, comprising: a first setting unit that sets a first period for performing the electric power control, and an overall target amount of power consumption corresponding to an upper limit of an amount of power to be consumed by all of the plurality of information processing apparatuses during the first period; a first calculation unit that calculates an individual target amount of power consumption corresponding to an upper limit of an amount of power to be consumed by each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses during a plurality of second periods obtained by segmentalizing the first period, based on the first period and the overall target amount of power consumption; a transmission unit that transmits the corresponding second period and the individual target amount of power consumption to each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses; a reception unit that receives an actual usage value of the amount of power consumption in the corresponding second period transmitted from each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses in response to the corresponding second period elapsing; and a second calculation unit that calculates the individual target amount of power consumption, based on the actual usage value of the amount of power consumption received from each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses and the overall target amount of power consumption, wherein the transmission unit retransmits the individual target amount of power consumption calculated by the corresponding second calculation unit to each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses, after the actual usage value of the amount of power consumption during the corresponding second period that is transmitted from each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses has been received by the reception unit.