Patent ID: 8543250

Claim:
An electric appliance comprising: a communication device connected with a smart grid net and configured to receive electric power information including a billed power-rate for each time period and a highly billed power rate time period in which the billed power-rate is a predetermined reference rate or more; a sensing device configured to sense an operation mode and an operation state according to the operation mode; and a control device configured to implement power-saving operation based on the received electric power information and the operation state sensed by the sensing device, wherein, when the highly billed power rate time period does not start during operation of a power consuming part required to implement the operation mode, the control device is configured to complete the operation, and wherein, when the highly billed power rate time period starts during the operation of the power consuming part required to implement the operation mode, the control device is further configured to: put on standby the operation of the power consuming part until the highly billed power rate time period finishes, if a remaining operation time or a remaining number of cycles of the power consuming part is equal to or larger than a predetermined time or a predetermined number, and complete the operation during the remaining operation time and the remaining number of cycles, if the remaining operation time or the remaining number of cycles of the power consuming part is smaller than the predetermined time or the predetermined number.