Patent ID: 8774976

Claim:
In a peak load management system comprising a battery system configured to store power for a customer of an electric utility and discharge stored power when actual load by the customer exceeds a target peak load for the customer and a peak load management processor operatively coupled with the battery system, a peak load management method, comprising: computing, by the peak load management processor, a predicted time when actual load is predicted to rise above the target peak load; detecting, by the peak load management processor, a detected time when actual load rises above the target peak load; determining, by the peak load management processor, whether the detected time precedes the predicted time by more than a configurable interval; entering, by the peak load management processor, an active management state in response to determining that the detected time precedes the predicted time by more than the configurable interval; and while in the active management state: implementing, by the peak load management processor, one or more initial countermeasures having a magnitude selected to correlate with an amount of time by which the detected time precedes the predicted time; computing, by the peak load management processor, a risk of a spike in grid power usage above the target peak load due to battery exhaustion; implementing, by the peak load management processor, one or more additional countermeasures having a magnitude selected to correlate with a level of the risk; and determining, by the peak load management processor, when actual load falls below the target peak load by a particular power margin, whereupon the active management state is exited.