Patent ID: 8898026

Claim:
A system for monitoring and controlling energy consumption, comprising: a first component comprising a wide area network interface for communicating with a remote server; a plurality of second components, each communicatively coupled with the first component, each second component comprising: a plurality of input ports for receiving a plurality of voltage and current signals, including voltage and current signals from a single phase load and all phases of a poly-phase load, an analog to digital converter for simultaneously sampling the received plurality of voltage and current signals from the single phase load and all phases of the poly-phase load and generating respective streams of digital values representative of the voltage and current signals of the single phase and poly-phase loads, a processor configured for using the streams of digital values to concurrently monitor electrical energy consumption of a plurality of loads, including both the single phase load and the poly-phase load, the configuration of the processor determined by configuration information, stored in that second component, originating from the remote server, and comprising load-definition data specifying which voltage signal(s) and current signal(s) are to be used in calculating energy consumption for each load to be monitored by that second component, wherein each of the second components is configured to transfer energy consumption data for their respectively monitored loads to the first component, the first component further is configured to implement at least one load control algorithm, and the first component is configured for centralized reporting of the energy consumption data from each of the second components, which can be accessed over the wide area network interface, and the system is configured to implement a load monitoring algorithm comprising establishing a baseline load value associated with each monitored load and to indicate a fault in a circuit providing power to the monitored load if the monitored load deviates from the baseline load value by more than a threshold.