Patent ID: 7346463

Claim:
A system for controlling remotely located electrically-powered systems in an electrical network, the system comprising: a first transceiver located at a customer premise and coupled by an interface to a meter and further having an identifier storable in a memory coupled to the first transceiver, the first transceiver being configured to wirelessly communicate bidirectionally according to the identifier with a control center via a plurality of additional wireless bidirectional transceivers, at least one of the additional wireless bidirectional transceivers being a site controller coupled to a wide area network and at least another of the additional wireless bidirectional transceivers also being coupled by an interface to a meter; a microcontroller coupled to the first transceiver and to a remotely located electrically-powered system and operable to control the operation of the electrically-powered system from at least a state of powered on to a state of powered off when the microcontroller receives a signal associated with actuating the power state of the remotely located electrically-powered system; and a keypad containing user selectable buttons electrically coupled to the microcontroller for receiving user input.