222results about "Monitoring/controlling" patented technology

An electric power meter includes an embedded decomposition module that is configured to decompose a power meter signal into constituent loads to segregate and identify energy consumption associated with each individual energy consumption device within a plurality of energy consumption devices coupled to the power meter.

Apparatus and method including acquiring a signal indicative of power consumption; detecting a transient in the signal; extracting a feature indicative of the transient, wherein extracting the feature includes: fitting a plurality of models to the transient, selecting one of the plurality of models as a model for the transient, and defining the feature indicative of the transient based on at least one parameter of the model for the transient; and classifying the transient based on the feature.

A solution for centrally managing and federating outage specific information and for rapidly providing controlled access to this information in a role tailored fashion. The information can be gathered and provided in real-time along with programmatically determined proposed actions. An information recipient can configure and dynamically change the manner in which the information is presented, so that relevant information for that recipient can be rapidly digested. For example, a manager with a moderate level of technical knowledge may want information to be presented pictorially and in summary fashion, while a highly technical troubleshooter may want to configure information presentation to show key network statistics and values. In one embodiment, outage information can be presented in a Web portal having multiple discrete and customizable portlets, which include a geography portlet and a system portlet.

A system and method to measure and control power usage within a residential or commercial building plurality having of electrical circuits electrically connected to an over-current protection device to ensure optimum energy usage therein. The system and method includes a power measurement and control device electrically connected to one of the electrical circuits by which a load draws power that is operable to (i) measure an electrical parameter of the electrical circuits, (ii) compare the measured electrical parameter to an ideal electrical parameter, and (iii) adjust power supplied to one or more of the electrical circuits based on the comparison of the measured electrical parameter and the ideal electrical parameter via a wall socket. The adjustment of power may be automatic or manual deactivation, decrease, and / or increase of power supplied to the electrical circuits via the wall socket so that such is equivalent to or less than the ideal electrical parameter.

Exemplary systems and methods for interaction with water usage information are provided. In various embodiments, a method comprises receiving water usage data from a meter device, receiving an identifier from a user associated with the meter device, providing an interactive interface to the user, the interactive interface conveying at least some water usage information based on the water usage data, receiving a first characterization of a first water activity from the user, generating a visualization based on the water usage information and the first characterization of the first water activity, and displaying the visualization.

An operation management apparatus includes an air conditioning thermal load prediction unit configured to calculate an air conditioning thermal load predicted value indicating a predicted amount of heat required to adjust temperature to a pre-set temperature on a day-of-prediction, a power generation output prediction processing unit configured to calculate power generation output prediction data indicating a generated power obtained by a generator within the day-of-prediction, and an operation planning unit configured to prepare an air conditioning heat source operation plan, and determines a purchased power and the generated power using the power generation output prediction data to thereby prepare a power facility operation plan indicating a schedule of a power output from the purchased power source and the generator, so that the purchased power per predetermined time supplied from a purchased power source of a commercial power system becomes a target value.

The present invention generally teaches systems and methods for creating appliance signatures based upon whole house composite load profiles. Methods may includes steps such as identifying primitive elements including transients and absolute steady state levels; clustering the primitive elements along multiple dimensions to form impulses; combining impulses to form simple bundles; combining simple bundles with each other or impulses to form complex bundles; and determining specific appliance signatures that substantially match the complex bundles. Methods may also include steps such as determining transitions within the whole house composite load profile; determining household specific appliance state machines for each appliance in the household; and disaggregating the whole house composite load profile into individual appliance energy loads by assigning the determined transitions to the determined household specific appliance state machines.

The present invention is generally directed to methods of disaggregating low resolution whole-house energy consumption data. In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention, methods may include steps of: receiving at a processor the low resolution whole house profile; selectively communicating with a first database including non-electrical information; selectively communicating with a second database including training data; and determining by the processor based on the low resolution whole house profile, the non-electrical information and the training data, individual appliance load profiles for one or more appliances.

Systems and methods are provided for collecting waveform data for a plurality of appliances that may be found in a residential or commercial setting using multi-port outlet monitoring devices to obtain power consumption profiles that indicate power consumption on a per-appliance and / or per-location basis and / or per user basis. The plurality of appliances is reliably identified from the power consumption profiles. In accordance with a method embodiment, waveform data transmitted from an unknown appliance is independently metered via a multi-port monitoring device over an elapsed time period. The metered waveform data is wirelessly transmitted from the multi-port monitoring device to a co-located system controller which constructs an appliance signature. The process may be repeated to generate multiple appliance signatures. The one or more appliance signatures are compared to a database of pre-stored canonical signatures to determine if there is a match to identify the appliance.

A power monitoring device for identifying the state of an electric appliance based on user feedbacks and a power monitoring method thereof are provided. The power monitoring device includes a measurement module, a variation detection and search module, and an electric appliance signature database established based on user feedbacks. When the measurement module detects a variation of a power consumption feature, the variation detection and search module searches the electric appliance signature database according to the variation to obtain electric appliances similar to the variation and the states thereof. A user contributes data to the electric appliance signature database by confirming the search result, or selecting the correct electric appliance and the state thereof. When the user confirms the search result, the power monitoring device establishes an association between the electric appliance and its electric appliance signatures and updates the electric appliance signature database.

Methods, apparatus, computer readable media, and signals for managing utility usage are disclosed. Generally, each involves receiving a representation of a utility service usage at a load, receiving and storing a usage range representation, and producing a control signal for use by a utility service interrupter, when the usage is outside of the usage range representation. The control signal is operable to cause the utility service interrupter to interrupt a supply of the utility service to the load. Each also involves receiving a control signal indicating that a usage of the utility service at the load is outside of a usage range representation, and interrupting the supply of the utility service to the load in response to the control signal. Systems and methods for monitoring subscriber usage of a utility service and for billing a subscriber for utility service usage are also disclosed.

Some embodiments can concern an apparatus configured to detect an electrical state of one or more electrical devices. The one or more electrical devices are coupled to an electrical power infrastructure and generate one or more high-frequency electrical signals on the electrical power infrastructure. The apparatus can include: (a) a processing module configured to run on a processor of a computational unit; and (b) a sensing device configured to be coupled to an electrical outlet. The sensing device can have: (a) a data acquisition receiver configured to receive the one or more high-frequency electrical signals via the electrical outlet and convert the one or more high-frequency electrical signals into one or more first data signals when the sensing device is coupled to the electrical outlet. The electrical outlet can be electrically coupled to the electrical power infrastructure. The sensing device is in communication with the computational unit. The processing module is further configured to identify the electrical state of the one or more electrical devices at least in part using the one or more first data signals. The high-frequency electrical signals comprise electrical signals in the ten kilohertz to three megahertz range. Other embodiments are disclosed.

The invention is a method for measuring and processing a plurality of electrical parameters of a common alternating current (AC) service that supplies multiple different electrical devices such that the power use rate and total power used by each of multiple devices is determined. Sensors provide high resolution signals corresponding to the current and voltage of the AC power supplied to the service panel typical of those used in residential construction. Analog-to-digital conversion and processing circuits determine multiple electrical parameters with high resolution at a sampling rate sufficient to determine the electrical parameters for approximately each AC cycle. The electrical parameters are stored as a large data set in a memory with sufficient capacity to store several months of electrical parameters representing each AC cycle. The data set is processed to extract complete on-off cycles of the devices. The on-off cycles are represented by instance structures. The characteristics of the instance structures are used to determine device structures. Each device structure characterizes one of the multiple devices. The contributions associated with the extracted instance structures are subtracted from the data set, making is possible to extract additional instance structures from the residual information in the data set. Information from the device structures are used to help extract instances structures that are partially obscured by overlapping instance structures. The newly extracted instances structures are subtracted from the data set and processing continues until no more instance structures can be extracted. Information from the extracted instance structures and device structures are further grouped and processed to provide useful information reports to a consumer. As the electrical parameters are determined and added to the data set, they can be incrementally processed so that near real time information can be provided to the consumer. The cost of operating each device and other information enables the consumer to make informed decision regarding energy use and conservation.

A utility data processing system for processing data relating to consumption of a utility comprises: a fact memory for storage of facts relating to utility consumption received from fact sources, at least one fact source module for deriving facts from utility consumption data and adding the derived facts to the tact memory, an inference module for inferring new facts relating to utility consumption from one or more facts stored in the fact memory, and an interlace module.

An apparatus has an input section arranged to receive values representative of the total instantaneous supply of electrical current as a function of time from an alternating voltage supply. Current waveforms comprising sets of values representative of the cyclic waveform of the electric current supply are obtained. A delta waveform generator calculates the difference between a current waveform and an earlier current waveform. An edge detector is arranged to detect an edge or edges in the delta waveform. An analysis section is arranged to identify at least one appliance load based at least on information on the edge or edges detected by the edge detector, and to determine the electrical energy consumed by said appliance load. Another apparatus has an input section arranged to receive values representative of the current supplied to an installation, such as a house. A store contains appliance data characteristic of the use of electricity by each of a plurality of appliances. A processor is arranged to analyse the received values to detect when an appliance is switched on and determine the fractional change in resistance of a heating appliance from the when it is switched on until it reaches its operating temperature. This information is used to identify what the particular appliance is, and to determine the electrical energy consumption by that appliance. A utility meter for metering the use of at least one utility supplied to a plurality of appliances is also disclosed. An input section is arranged to receive values representative of the use of a first utility. A store contains appliance data characteristic of the use of utilities by each of a plurality of appliances. A processor is arranged to analyse the received values and to determine information on the use of a second utility by each appliance, based on the received values and appliance data.

The present invention relates generally to detecting energy theft within an energy distribution system and more particularly to systems and methods for detecting energy discrepancies in voltages and / or currents reported by electric meters present in a distribution circuit, without requiring installation of additional hardware at the transformer. Typically, the location of each of at least two meters is determined with respect to a transformer. The line resistances within the distribution circuit are determined starting with a line resistance farthest from the transformer. Estimated line voltages are determined for at least one electric meter using the estimated line resistances, and the estimated voltages are compared to actual voltage readings for the at least one electric meter. The existence of line loss is determined based on this comparison.

An auto-learned hierarchy algorithm that learns the hierarchical layout of a power monitoring system. Historical power data from each meter is received and placed into a data table. The main is assumed to be at the top of the hierarchy and is designated as the reference. A check matrix is developed indicating whether a possible connection exists between each meter pair combination. A correlation coefficient matrix (CCM) is calculated based on the data table, and entries in which no connection is possible are zeroed. The column for the reference meter from the CCM is copied to a correlation reference array (CRA), and the meter having the highest correlation with the reference meter in the CRA is marked as connected to the reference meter in a connection table. That meter's power is subtracted from the data table and the procedure is repeated until all meters have been analyzed.

The present invention relates to a management system for in-house power consumption, more particularly to a management system for in-house power consumption efficiently performing in-house power consumption by means of estimating power consumption of each operation of in-house electric devices. The present invention provides a management system for in-house power consumption comprising: at least one or more electric devices (30, 40, 50, 60) which comprise a communication means and transmit current operation information via the communication means on a given network; an power sensor module (20) that measures an instantaneous power consumption of the total electric devices and transmit it on the network; and a power consumption controller (70) that saves a previously received the operation information and the instantaneous power consumption and estimates the power consumption of each electric device (30, 40, 50, 60) on the basis of the saved operation information and instantaneous power consumption and the currently received operation information and instantaneous power consumption.

Disclosed is an apparatus and method for energy management of electric devices, which individually displays various pieces of energy related information, such as consumption time, power consumption amount, current electricity rate and future electricity rate, in an apparatus provided to each electric device and controls the presence of operation of an individual electric device so as to make more effective use of limited energy resources in commercialized smart grid and smart meter technologies in which the energy price is changed depending on time. To this end, the operating state of each of the electric devices is estimated based on a variation in total energy consumption amount detected by a meter.

An electric power distribution system is used with an electric power source. The electric power distribution system includes a first device exchanging first electric power with the electric power source. The first device exchanges the first electric power with a plurality of second devices and meters first electric energy corresponding to the first electric power. The second devices exchange the first electric power with the first device. Each of the second devices exchanges second electric power as at least part of the first electric power with a number of corresponding electric loads and meter second electric energy corresponding to the second electric power. A processor includes a routine that compares the metered first electric energy from the first device with a sum of the metered second electric energy from each of the second devices, and responsively determines proper or improper operation of the electric power distribution system.

Systems and methods for locating a possible failure on a power network are provided. In one embodiment, a method may include determining that a possible power network failure exists based on a first group of network devices without battery back-up capabilities having an inactive status and a second groups of network devices with battery back-up capabilities having an active status on a communications network, wherein each of the network devices are adapted for receiving at least primary power from a power network; determining addresses for at least a portion of the first or the second groups of network devices; locating the addresses on a power network grid topology; and identifying at least one power network component or power network segment as a possible power network failure location based on locations of the at least a portion of the first or the second groups of network devices.

A system for automatic identification of a device or appliance includes: at least one sensor associatable with the device or appliance to be identified, and able to monitor an evolution in time of an electrical quantity indicative of device or appliance energy consumption; an analyzer communicating with the at least one sensor including receiving reports of the monitored electrical quantity, and automatically identifying the device or appliance by analyzing the evolution in time of the monitored electric quantity. The analyzing calculates a cross-correlation between the evolution in time of the monitored electric quantity and at least one reference pattern representative of at least one sample device or appliance; and when more than one sample device or appliance is included in a candidate list, identifies the device or appliance by performing a selection among the candidates based on characteristic parameters related to the respective calculated cross-correlations.

Techniques for power outage management and power support restoration for devices in a wireless network are disclosed herein. Such a wireless network may include a number of bi-directional nodes in bi-directional wireless communication with one or more central nodes. Each bi-directional node may have a wireless communication path to one of the central nodes that is either a direct path or an indirect path through one or more intermediate bi-directional nodes serving as relays. Each bi-directional node may be configured to detect when it has become stranded such that it can no longer communicate with its assigned central node via its assigned communication path, to determine a reason for its stranding, and to transmit a stranding notification and the reason therefore.

The present invention provides a monitoring system for a conduit network including one or more conduit sections joined at one or more conduit nodes, including: one or more sensor devices disposed at selected ones of the one or more conduit nodes, wherein each of the one or more sensor devices is operable for sensing a blockage or breakage in an associated conduit section, and wherein each of the one or more sensor devices is operable for communicating blockage or breakage information to a central location. Optionally, each of the sensor devices includes one of an audio sensor device and a radio frequency sensor device. Each of the sensor devices is operable for sensing the blockage or breakage in the associated conduit section by measuring an attribute of a transmitted / received signal, alone or in combination with another sensor device. Each of the sensor devices is operable for communicating the blockage or breakage information to the central location via a wireless link.

Systems and methods for classifying a possible failure in a power network are provided. In one embodiment, a method may include receiving network device status information for multiple network devices in communication with a communications network and capable of receiving primary power from a power network; and determining that a possible power network failure exists based on a first portion of the network devices associated with an inactive status and a second portion of the network devices associated with an active status, wherein the first portion comprises network devices without battery back-up capabilities and the second portion comprises network devices with battery back-up capabilities.