527 results about "Energy depletion" patented technology

Methods and systems are disclosed for controlling energy consumption at a facility, or a group of facilities, using current and future energy prices, and seasonal and environmental information to control a load shedding scheme.

A method for adaptively load balancing user sessions to reduce energy consumption includes identifying a session type for each of a plurality of user sessions. A server group is defined, providing access to a subset of the user sessions having a common session type. A power management schedule is also defined for the server group. The method includes consolidating, onto at least one server in the server group, the subset of user sessions. In still another aspect, a method for reducing energy consumption by dynamically managing power modes for a plurality of servers, includes monitoring, via a power monitoring agent, a level of load on one of the servers. A power management console generates a power management schedule for a server, responsive to the monitored level of load. Responsive to the power management schedule, a power management controller dynamically controls a level of power for the server.

An energy management system uses an expert engine and a numerical solver to determine an optimal manner of using and controlling the various energy consumption, producing and storage equipment in a plant/communities in order to for example reduce energy costs within the plant, and is especially applicable to plants that require or that are capable of using and/or producing different types of energy at different times. The energy management system operates the various energy manufacturing and energy usage components of the plant to minimize the cost of energy over time, or at various different times, while still meeting certain constraints or requirements within the operational system, such as producing a certain amount of heat or cooling, a certain power level, a certain level of production, etc. In some cases, the energy management system may cause the operational equipment of the plant to produce unneeded energy that can be stored until a later time and then used, or that can be sold back to a public utility, for example, so as to reduce the overall cost of energy within the plant.

Systems and methods for managing power supplied over an electric power grid by an electric utility and/or other market participants to multiple power consuming devices, each of which having a Power Supply Value (PSV) associated with its energy consumption and/or reduction in consumption. Power flow to the power consuming devices is selectively enabled and disabled, or power-reduced thereto, by one or more controllable devices controlled by the client device. Power control messages from a controlling server indicate amounts of electric power to be reduced and an identification of at least one controllable device to be instructed to disable or reduce a flow of electric power to one or more associated power consuming devices.

The present invention comprises a method, and corresponding system, apparatus and memory for trading energy commitments to reduce or increase energy demand (a demand response commitment), to increase or reduce energy production (a supply response commitment) upon demand or to deliver or to not deliver energy (an energy delivery commitment). Such commitments are made available by energy consumers, energy generators and energy delivery companies, respectively, to an entity that provides consideration for these energy commitments and trades them as fungible commodities to energy market participants. In one embodiment, the present invention comprises a method for trading energy commitments to reduce or increase energy consumption, to increase or reduce energy generation, or to deliver energy, comprising receiving a plurality of multi-year energy commitments; providing consideration for each of the multi-year energy commitments; and trading at least one of the plurality of energy commitments upon demand.

An apparatus and method for managing consumption of electricity of loads at a site which includes energy storage, a system controller, and load shedding ability. The system controller monitors energy consumption of the site and discharges energy into the site when consumption exceeds a maximum consumption threshold. If energy storage is depleted while consumption remains in excess of the threshold the controller may engage load shedding to prevent consumption from exceeding the maximum threshold. Additionally, the energy storage device may recharge during a peak consumption period due to load shedding reducing consumption below the maximum threshold, and the energy storage device may use this recovered energy to further mitigate the peak; in some embodiments, repetitively. Supplemental and additional load mitigation techniques may also be implemented to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the systems and methods.

Systems and methods for distributed control and energy management of one or more communities of energy-consuming units may include aggregation of consumption data from units, and determining per-unit electricity consumption based thereon, including consumption of backup power provided by a community during periods of time of poor quality (brownouts) or blackouts of a utility. A system may calculate and assess to respective units per-unit costs for such backup power. A system may also issue a command or alert to units to carry out one or both of community electricity usage objectives and electricity quotas required by the utility, which may be determined through execution of rules.

A method for diagnostically evaluating energy consumption of a facility includes receiving energy consumption data associated with the facility, generating facility data associated with the facility, and receiving external variable data associated with the facility corresponding to the energy consumption data. The method also includes generating a first energy consumption model for the facility using the facility data, the energy consumption data, and the external variable data. The first energy consumption model corresponds to actual energy consumption of the facility. The method further includes generating a second energy consumption model for the facility using the facility data and the external variable data. The second energy consumption model corresponds to expected energy consumption of the facility. The method also includes diagnostically evaluating the energy consumption of the facility using the first and second energy consumption models.

Low-energy consumption techniques for locating a movable object using a global satellite navigation system (GNSS) are provided. A mobile station attached to or included in a movable object can communicate bidirectionally with a fixed base station to determine a location of the movable object. The mobile station may communicate an estimated position to the base station and receive from the base station a set of GNSS satellites that are visible to the mobile station. The mobile station can acquire satellite timing information from GNSS signals from the set of satellites and communicate minimally-processed satellite timing information to the base station. The base station can determine the position of the mobile station and communicate the position back to the mobile station. By offloading much of the processing to the base station, energy consumption of the mobile station is reduced.

A method for remote energy consumption system retrofit identification for a facility includes receiving energy consumption data associated with the facility, generating facility data associated with the facility, and receiving external variable data associated with the facility corresponding to the energy consumption data. The method also includes generating a first energy consumption model based on the facility data, the energy consumption data, and the external variable data. The method also includes generating a second energy consumption model based on the facility data and the external variable data. The method further includes determining energy consumption efficiency for the facility using the first and second energy consumption models and identifying a retrofit of an energy consumption system of the facility based on the energy consumption efficiency.

A method and system for effective management of energy consumption by household appliances, using a home energy information gateway. Particularly, the invention provides a method and system for an efficient and economic home energy information gateway which can provide the energy consumption information and communication interface through a set top box like gateway device on the existing display device such as television thereby reducing extra display medium cost. More particularly, the invention provides a method and system for managing energy consumption effectively by monitoring, controlling and displaying energy usage of household appliances by way of collecting smart meter data and generating user friendly reports and graphs.

Methods for systematically providing enhanced energy efficiency of mega industrial sites and synergy with the adjacent community through advanced hybrid inter-systems energy integration targeting and solutions generation to achieve desired best levels of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions reduction, are provided. An exemplary method includes identifying a plurality of possible inter-processes integration energy consumption targets for a plurality of possible inter-processes energy integration combinations between a plurality of functional areas of a mega industrial site, selecting an energy-efficient inter-processes integration energy consumption target, identifying the combination of the plurality of possible inter-processes energy integration combinations providing for the energy efficient inter-processes integration energy consumption target, generating a plurality of technically viable industrial site inter-processes heat exchange system design alternatives, and identifying the technically viable industrial site inter-processes heat exchange system design substantially providing for optimal total waste heat recovery between the respective functional areas.

An energy management system manages energy consumption of managed device(s) disposed to receive energy via a meter connected to an energy supply, the energy supply. A system controller has a computer processor that instructs the managed device(s) to employ an operational mode based on the priority, the energy need, the demand state, and whether the energy consumption rate of the managed device(s) exceeds energy available from at least one of the external energy source and internal energy source.

A computer-based system, computer-implemented method and computer program product facilitate determining energy cost savings in an energy-consuming facility, such as a commercial building, using an artificial intelligence model, for example a neural network model, that projects or estimates the amount of energy that would have been consumed by the facility but for the implementation of energy efficiency or conservation measures. Energy savings are represented by the difference between the estimate of energy that would have been consumed but for the measures and the actual amount of energy consumed by the facility under actual conditions during a time interval after the measures have been implemented.

An apparatus for providing a building energy consumption diagnosis and a real-time commissioning processing, includes a database section configured to store building related information; a real-time commissioning section configured to diagnose energy efficiency and obstruction of the mechanical facilities using the building related information. Further, the apparatus includes a building energy consumption information analysis section configured to determine an energy consumption references and diagnose energy consumption of the buildings to be commissioned using the building related information, the real-time operation information and the measured information on the basis of the determined energy consumption reference.

In one embodiment, an improved circuit breaker module is installed in an electrical panel of a customer structure that receives power from a solar cell module and a utility company. The circuit breaker module may include a current sensor for sensing electrical current drawn by the customer structure from the utility company. The circuit breaker module may further include a current processing unit for capturing sensed electrical current values to generate energy consumption data and a data transmitter for transmitting energy consumption data to a remotely located data collection computer. The circuit breaker module may transmit energy consumption data over a wired or wireless data link. The circuit breaker module advantageously allows for relatively low cost and easy installation, encouraging installation of solar cell modules even in existing customer structures.

Utilisation of geothermal energy in depths above 5 km could contribute considerably to resolving the global problems related to a lack of energy and to glasshouse gases from fossil fuels. The invention describes innovative equipment which makes deep holes in geological formations (rock) by disintegrating the soil into blocks carried to the land surface through the excavated hole filled with liquid, using transport modules yielded up by gas buoyancy interaction in the transport module utilising supercavitation. In an opposite direction—by help of negative buoyancy—the necessary energy carriers, materials and components, or entire devices required for rock excavation, are carried to the bottom. The opportunity to transport rock in entire blocks reduces energy consumption considerably, because the rock is disintegrated in the section volumes only. Some of the extracted rock and material carried from the surface is used to make a casing of the hole using a part of the equipment. The equipment also allows the generation of the necessary high pressure of liquid at the bottom of the hole, to increase permeability of adjacent rock. The equipment as a whole allows by its function that there is almost linear dependence between the price and depth (length) of the produced hole (borehole).

The invention relates to a tank withdrawal system for a vehicle tank filled with a frozen liquid. The tank withdrawal system comprises a heating system comprising at least one electric heating element as primary heating device and a conduit system provided with at least one withdrawal conduit with a withdrawal opening arranged in the vehicle tank. The cold start volume of the frozen liquid extending around the withdrawal opening can be melted by the primary heating device. To quickly melt a cold start volume while melting off the remaining frozen liquid consuming as minimal amount of energy, the heating system comprises a secondary heating device supplied with a heating fluid and the conduit system comprises at least one heating conduit through which the heating fluid can flow and which is arranged in the liquid in the vehicle tank.

A method of managing energy consumption in an enclosed spaced includes the step of providing temperature and foot traffic data to a plan generator. The method further includes the steps of generating an energy plan based on the temperature and foot traffic data and controlling one or more energy consuming devices based on the energy plan.