Patent ID: 8781638

Claim:
A campus energy management method comprising the steps of: providing a campus electric power infrastructure including a campus electric power distribution system; providing an energy manager for managing electrical loads interconnected with the campus electric power infrastructure; providing field devices interfacing with campus loads and local generating resources; providing field devices sensing load related environmental variables; providing energy manager interface modules including bidirectional interface modules for translating field device data into a common format acceptable to the energy manager; an energy manager processor receiving information from field devices via the interface modules; and, the energy manager processor issuing commands to field devices via the interface modules; determining from a plurality of operating modes a particular operating mode; in a demand response operating mode with a requested load reduction RLR, managing by evaluating a potential for building load reduction BLR, if BLR>=RLR then issuing building load reduction command(s), if RLR>BLR then determining if RLR>dispatchable local generation DLG, and if RLR>BLR and if RLR>DLG then issuing building load reduction command(s) and dispatching dispatchable local generation; in a carbon reduction operating mode with a target carbon reduction TCR, managing by determining CO2 reduction from potential load reduction LCR, and if LCR<TCR then reducing carbon production through load reductions and operation of dispatchable local renewable generation; and in a make or buy operating mode, using indications of make electricity cost M$ and buy electricity cost B$ to dispatch local dispatchable generation where B$>M$ and where this inequality is expected to hold for a time period exceeding a selected minimum local renewable generation run time period.