Patent ID: 8878692

Claim:
An energy management system, comprising: a plurality of meters, each located at a different location that corresponds to one of a plurality of individual users and configured to: determine an amount of energy consumption at the location at which the corresponding user is located; and transmit first information to a repeater via a first communication network, the first information related to the determined amount of energy consumption at the location at which the corresponding user is located; a central management server configured to: transmit second information to the repeater via a second communication network, the second information related to an energy pricing system; and receive a calculated energy consumption cost of each of the plurality of individual users from the repeater; and the repeater located at a location that is remote from the plurality of individual users and configured to: store the first information received from the meter and the second information received from the central management server in a storage medium; determine the energy consumption cost of each of the plurality of individual users; store the determined energy consumption cost of each of the plurality of individual users in the storage medium; transmit the determined energy consumption cost of each of the plurality of individual users to the central management server, determine whether information related to the energy consumption cost is stored in the storage medium when there is a request from one of the plurality of meters for the information related to the energy consumption cost; transmit the requested information to the corresponding meter if it is determined that the information related to the energy consumption cost is stored in the storage medium; and request the information related to the energy consumption cost from the central management server, receive the requested information from the central management server and transmit the received information to the corresponding meter if it is determined that the information related to the energy consumption cost is not stored in the storage medium.