Patent ID: 8600562

Claim:
A method of energy management for controlling heating or cooling in a building, comprising: using at least one centrally located energy-consumption sensor; using a measuring means to measure overall energy consumption in a building using at least one centrally-located energy consumption sensor; storing in a baseline data store baseline energy consumption measurements gathered by said measuring means; storing in a current-consumption data store current energy consumption measurements which occur; using a modelling means having predictive capability; to mathematically model a predicted pattern of behavior of occupants of the building over time; and using a controller to control the operation of heating or cooling in response to the model of predicted pattern of behavior, said baseline energy consumption measurements of said baseline data store, and said current energy consumption measurements of said current consumption data store; wherein the method of energy management comprises the steps of: storing the baseline energy consumption measurements in the baseline data store; storing the current energy consumption measurements in the current-consumption data store; predicting occupant behavior, said predicting comprising automatically generation a mathematical model of a predicted pattern of behavior of occupants of the building over time by comparing the baseline energy consumption measurements of the baseline data store with the current energy consumption measurements of the current-consumption data store to form a model of appliance utilization by the occupants, wherein said behavior modelling predicts exercise activity level of the building occupants to form the model; and utilizing said controller to automatically control at least the operation of heating or cooling according to the predicted exercise activity level of the model of the predicted pattern of behavior the occupants; the method further comprising using an adaptor to sense a start-up characteristics of an appliance and to provide location information indicating where the appliance is within the building, the method comprising comparing a said sensed start-up characteristic with reference characteristics to determine a type of the appliance.