Patent ID: 8782450

Claim:
A power capping system for use in temporarily capping power consumption in a computer system, the computer system having a plurality of components including at least one power supply and one processor, the power capping system, comprising: a plurality of power monitors, each power monitor associated with at least one component of the computer system; one or more switches, each switch associated with at least one of the components; and a power capping controller comprising programming to implement a power capping method, the programming, comprising: a power supply monitor that monitors availability of power to the plurality of components from the power supply, a processor monitor that monitors power demand by the processor and that generates a power reduction signal when a power-related threshold is reached by checking at least a transient module that compares a rate of change of power consumption to a transient threshold, and a command module that receives the power reduction signal and generates a first power reduction command to open at least one of the switches, whereby power consumption in the computer system is reduced.