Patent ID: 8217599

Claim:
A regenerative braking apparatus that is connected to a power supply apparatus that supplies electric power to a load, and consumes regenerative power regenerated from a load side together with other regenerative braking apparatuses that are connected to the power supply apparatus, the regenerative braking apparatus comprising: a consuming unit that consumes the regenerative power; an energizing unit that energizes the consuming unit with the regenerative power; a monitoring unit that monitors the regenerative power; an operation-level changing unit that calculates a lower limit of an operation level for judging whether the energizing unit should be actuated according to a time integral of an energization time of the consuming unit, and changes and outputs the calculated lower limit of the operation level; a comparing unit that compares the lower limit of the operation level output from the operation-level changing unit and a monitor output of the monitoring unit; and a driving unit that drives the energizing unit based on a result of the comparison by the comparing unit, wherein the energizing unit operates when the monitor output exceeds the lower limit of the operation level.