2637 results about "Smart meter" patented technology

An adapter system connects a smart-phone or other camera to an ophthalmoscope or other viewing instrument at multiple locations with a single bracket. A fitting attached to the bracket connects the adapter to the viewing instrument in the region near its view port, close to the optical axis. A brace attached to the bracket connects the adapter to the viewing instrument in the region of the instrument's handle or other support structure, located away from the optical axis. The brace has a frame that holds the camera in place and aligns the camera lens with the optical axis of the instrument. The processor of the smart-phone or other mobile communications device can provide specific information related to the particular viewing instrument and can also be used in the operation and control of smart-scope instruments through a communications link.

A method and system is proposed for the physical trading of electricity, which is characterized by continuous Dynamic Advanced Prices formation and propagation over a single price period that is a few seconds long. The Node and Branch price equations are applied to the power flows and to the corresponding costs incurred at measure points, as well as to the system-wide costs allocated equitably by means of a Price Designator, Price Announcers, Price Transmuters and Intelligent Meters and by other devices, all of which function together in a sequential and repetitive process of preliminary bidding, clearing, adjustment and dispatching, followed by price designation, confirmation and conversion in a way that takes into account congestion and security costs and the compensation of involuntary deviations. The method provides a common electricity trade environment that allows every market participant, especially every consumer, to respond adequately to last minute price changes.

A payment service enables a credit account or a debit account of a customer to be automatically billed for utility usage based on a reading that is automatically taken by an electronic utility meter. A method for processing information relating to usage of a utility includes receiving a utility reading that is a measure of the usage of the utility by a customer. The utility reading is received from a customer site across a first transmission medium. The method next determines an amount using the utility reading and transmitting the amount to a utility provider that is arranged to cause the amount to be paid. The amount is transmitted to the second remote location across a second transmission medium. The first transmission medium and the second transmission medium are each either a network communications line, a fiberoptic line, or a telephone line. The smart utility meter includes an electronic meter reader, a processor unit, a memory, a configuration interface, a network interface, and a power supply.

The invention relates to a meter box for housing a utility meter and configured for associating a customer service line to a utility service line. The meter box may be configured to fit within an existing meter box and may be configured with side sections in a telescopic arrangement. Flow control components at an input of the meter box prevent backflow.

The meter box comprises an electronic module that includes a variety of selectable features including datalogging, AMR, environmental monitoring, and resource monitoring. A remote monitor is provided for allowing a customer to view selected data including consumption data, pressure, pH, temperature, warnings, remote turnoff, and provide secured bill paying services. Imaging/audio components provide visual and audio data which may include an image of an analog readout for a meter register, images of the metering environment, and sound data for metering environment.

A system and method are provided for remotely capturing, processing and displaying spot electricity pricing information that enable a consumer to conveniently monitor market prices and use such information to determine when and how to consume electricity. A terminal is conveniently located within the residence of the consumer, and is preferably designed to be ergonomic in its human interface, as well as aesthetically pleasing. The terminal provides a convenient, intelligent and thus useful device so as to enable the consumer to take advantage of favourable spot pricing offered by an electricity supplier using data that has already been transmitted to a smart meter, or similar data provided by an independent entity.

Method and apparatus for mounting and locating untethered embedded antenna elements in the dielectric cover of electric utility meters configured for but not limited to wireless remote one way or two way radio communications for automated metering applications such as remote meter reading, remote connect/disconnect, home area networking, meter equipment firmware downloads, load management or locations based services. A multiplicity of untethered integral antenna elements and topologies may be located within a replacement dielectric cover for a direct-connect cable free or cable connection to a radio or microwave modem. Also described is a method and apparatus for retro-fitting the antenna elements on the inner face of an existing utility meter dielectric cover.

An intelligent system for collecting readings from electric meters, comprising the following components: several electric meters, a data concentrator connected to the electric meters, and a system main station connected to the concentrator wirelessly, in which: the electric meter for recording the consumed quantity of electricity by user, metering the quantity of electricity, measuring demand and making a fault recording, and supporting a time-sharing measurement and communication with the data concentrator by electric power carrier; a concentrator for providing intelligent relay management, implementing the communication with the electric meters and the system main station, the management of communication route of electric meters and the storage function of data; the system main station for realizing a stable bi-directional communication with the concentrator and several electric meters, reading data in the concentrator, collecting information on electric energy, synchronizing the time of the concentrator and the electric meters associated therewith, renewing time step tariff rate and meter parameters of the electric meters. Bi-directional stable communication between the main station and the intelligent electric meters and collection of electrical energy information and the adjustment of parameters of electric meters can be realized by transmission medium in the present invention. The system of the present invention features complete functions, stable user-friendly operation interface, and has good expansion potential. Therefore this system is an important technical means for user-side management. The present invention greatly improves management efficiency and economic benefits in the electrical power department.

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.

The invention discloses an automatic identification method and system of low-voltage power distribution network topology based on based on power frequency carrier communication technology. A concentrator and an automatic topology identification device are installed beside each transformer in a low-voltage distribution network court, the concentrator and the automatic topology identification device are connected by a 485 line, a dual-mode collector is internally or externally arranged on an intelligent electric meter of the low-voltage distribution network court, an intelligent power distribution network topology identification master station is installed in a power marketing center or a power operation and inspection department, then the intelligent power distribution network topology identification master station performs automatic identification via the above equipment, the automatic identification converts the newly established topology link relation table data into a geographical topology diagram and a logic topology diagram of the low-voltage power distribution network, updates the original geographical topology diagram and the original logic topology diagram of the court, and records a topology state change event. The automatic identification method and system disclosed by the invention are conducive to updating the data in real time and greatly improving the timeliness of operation and maintenance, and patrol and repair, and play an important role of improving the economic benefits of power enterprises.

The invention provides an energy consumption integrated control system and a method, which is used for energy conservation and measurement control in occasions such as a base station, a motor room, an office building and the like. The method is implemented as follows: collecting energy consumption subentry measurement data; collecting multiple environment parameters relevant to energy consumption equipment; collecting and storing the collected energy consumption subentry measurement data and the collected relevant multiple environment parameters; receiving, outputting and displaying energy conservation data of the energy consumption equipment obtained by comparing the energy consumption subentry measurement data in real time and receiving a control strategy obtained by analyzing and comparing the relevant multiple environment parameters; and sending a control command based on the control strategy to control the relevant energy consumption equipment to regulate relevant parameters so as to realize the aim of energy conservation. The energy consumption integrated control system comprises an intelligent ammeter, multiple sensors, a data collector, an analyzer, a controller, a controlled device and a display. By collecting environment parameters, analyzing the existing energy consumption systems and energy conservation effects brought by various energy conservation measures and equipment in real time, the energy conservation input-output ratio can be reflected clearly; and the energy conservation measures are regulated based on environment changes, thus realizing intelligent interaction of energy conservation equipment.

Described herein are embodiments of methods and systems of communicating with smart appliances through a smart grid and smart meter infrastructure. In one aspect, a method is described comprising a smart meter connected to a first network receiving via the first network registration information for an appliance operably connected to the first network, wherein the registration information includes a unique identifier for the appliance; transmitting at least a portion of the registration information and a smart meter identifier that uniquely identifies the smart meter to a second computing device connected to a second network; receiving, by the second computing device, update information for the appliance; transmitting, by the second computing device, the update information to the smart meter via the second network using the unique identifier for the device and the smart meter identifier; transmitting, by the smart meter, the update information to the appliance; and updating the appliance with the update information.

Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for smart energy management by controlling power consumption. Power consumption information is collected from one or more electrical device groups with a smart meter and electrical devices connected through gateways. When the method estimates that the power consumption will be larger than a threshold value, a control command is outputted to a load controller connected through the gateway and power consumption of electrical devices that belong to the electrical device using group is remotely controlled. According to an embodiment of the present invention, an energy company that produces and supplies energy can supply energy depending on a consumer's demand by using current facilities because the present invention can collect remotely energy consumption, analyze energy consumption patterns, and control automatically the energy consumption of electrical devices installed in a customer's area. The consumer who consumes energy can save the energy consumption and the charge of the energy 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.

The invention discloses an intelligent electric meter system for residents for an intelligent smart grid. According to the intelligent electric meter system for the residents for the intelligent smart grid, one intelligent electric meter is arranged in home of each resident, two control terminals are respectively arranged on each controlled electric appliance and each user switch, and each distributed power supply is provided with a distributed power supply access device; each control terminal and the distributed power supply access device are interconnected through a PLC (Programmable Logic Computer) communication network, and the intelligent electric meter and a high-class measuring system AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) carry out information interaction. The intelligent electric meter system is suitable for the residents having tiered pricing for electricity and time-sharing pricing for electricity, and aims at minimum electric charge expenditure of users, and is used for intelligently controlling the electric appliances and the distributed power supplies of the residents so as to realize peak clipping and valley filling of the electric charge, and provide power supply quality and power supply reliability.

The invention discloses an intelligent telemetering ammeter based on a wireless sensor network. The hardware of the intelligent ammeter equipment comprises an exclusive radio frequency unit, a microcontroller unit, a power supply management unit, an electrical power information collecting unit, an external storage unit, a liquid crystal display unit and a fault detection unit. The intelligent ammeter has the functions of information collection, calculation, forwarding, routing, and the like. The intelligent ammeter automatically forms an ammeter network with other intelligent ammeters by the radio frequency unit, and is connected with a computer system of a power supply enterprise by a gateway. When used, the invention is connected with a wireless public utility product based on ZigBee technology to be used as a base station of other ammeter networks. The invention realizes the reliable connection between a remote power supply enterprise and electrical power users based on the wireless network, realizes the bidirectional transmission of data, and meets the electricity management requirements of residents by power supply enterprises.

The invention discloses a running error and running diagnosis analyzing method and system for an intelligent electric meter. The method comprises the following steps: correspondingly acquiring user profiles and electricity consumption data based on preset cycle, wherein the electricity consumption data comprises electricity supply quantity data of an assessed electric meter of a court under at least one cycle, and electricity consumption data of corresponding user electric meter; building an error calculating model according to the electricity quantity data and user profile relational data; analyzing the electricity supply quantity data of the assessed electric meter of the court and the electricity consumption data of the corresponding user electric meter through the error calculating model; monitoring the running analyzing progress, the data processing process and the data analyzing result of the error calculating model; and displaying through Web. According to the method, the big data technology is adopted, and the courts are treated as the units, and on that basis, the wire loss of the courts and the running error of each intelligent meter in each courts can be researched, thus the maintenance efficiency of the intelligent electric meter can be greatly improved, and the operation cost can be decreased.

The invention discloses an intelligent electric meter (100), and the electric meter (100) comprises a central processor (101); a metering module (102) which is connected with the central processor (101) and is used for the bidirectional metering of the electric quantity; a blockchain module (103) which carries out the data interaction with the central processor (101), and is used for achieving thepoint-to-point power transaction between nodes in a blockchain network in a region and the storage of he distributed electric quantity metering and transaction data. The electric meter provided by the invention achieves the power transaction and recording through the blockchain module (103), and enables the final electric quantity information and point-to-point power transaction information to bestored in the blockchain network in a distributed and non-tampered manner. The electric meter achieves the distributed power generation and storage and the bidirectional metering of the power generation quantity and power utilization quantity of a power user, and achieves the metering, transaction and recording of the electric quantity of a distributed intelligent microgrid. A distributed power generation side and power utilization side serve as the basis of the transaction and charging through the intelligent electric meter, thereby enabling the microgrid to be more economically feasible.

The invention discloses a prediction method for the q-precentile life of an intelligent meter and relates to the technical field of reliability estimation of accelerated degradation data. The method comprises the following steps: performing degradation path modeling according to test data, and obtaining the pseudo life estimation of the intelligent meter under all stress levels according to the failure threshold value of given parameters; building a Weibull distribution-based accelerated degradation model of three parameters, such as temperature, humidity and electrical stress according to the pseudo life estimation results of the intelligent meter under all stress levels of an accelerated degradation test, so as to obtain the point estimation and covariance estimation of the acceleration model; and obtaining the lower estimation of parameter service life of the intelligent meter under a given reliability degree and a given confidence degree in normal use conditions according to the point and covariance matrix of the parameters of the accelerated degradation model. Due to the adoption of the method, the test time is effectively shortened, the test expense is reduced, and the quick and accurate estimation of a stable period of an accelerometer is realized.

The invention discloses a blockchain-based power system transaction method. The method uses blockchain to record the specific transaction information of a power system, automatically executes the transfer of funds through smart contracts and collects the power data of the smart meter so that the transaction management agency only performs safety verification on the completed transactions to ensurethat the power system does not have abnormal conditions such as blockage. Since the transactions are recorded in each node, when some nodes are attacked, the attacked nodes can rebuild data through the un-attacked nodes, therefore the data security is ensured.

Utility meter readings generated at low sampling rates are disaggregated to identify consumer usage activities. Time intervals between readings can include a plurality of consumer usage activities. By employing a model which recognizes associations among consumer usage activities, effective disaggregation is possible using only aggregated consumption data and interval start times. Consumers and utility managers can design and assess conservation programs based on the disaggregated consumption usage activities.

The invention discloses a privacy protection type real-time electric charge collecting method of an intelligent power grid. The method comprises the following steps: 1, initializing a system; 2, registering through a user before logging in the network; 3, releasing network access permit for an intelligent ammeter through a local aggregator; 4, obtaining a safety parameter through the intelligent ammeter; 5, transferring the network access permit through building gateway; 6, blinding the user electricity consumption data through the intelligent ammeter; 7, signing the blinded massage through the building gateway, and sending the signature result to the local aggregator; 8, removing blinding of the signed message through the local aggregator, recovering the user electricity consumption data, signature value of the user electricity consumption data, and the signature parameter, and verifying the validity of the signature value of the user electricity consumption data. With the adoption of the method, the user privacy is protected when collecting the real-time electricity consumption data; meanwhile, the source of vicious electricity consumption data can be found out; therefore, the stability of a power grid system can be improved well.

The invention provides an intelligent electric meter main control chip. The intelligent electric meter main control chip comprises an internal bus, a main processor module, a data storage module and at least one application module, wherein the main processor module, the data storage module and the application module are connected to the internal bus, and the application module comprises a metering module. A security control module is further integrated inside the chip, is connected to the internal bus and has a security encryption function. The chip further comprises a storage protecting module, wherein the storage protecting module is connected between the main processor module and the internal bus and is configured for shielding illegal memory access instructions. Due to the fact that the security control module is arranged inside the main control chip and connected with a center processing module through the internal bus, security holes of a security control chip of an application software bypass of an intelligent electric meter terminal can be effectively avoided, and meanwhile production and testing cost is reduced. The invention further provides a security encryption method based on the intelligent electric meter main control chip and a certificate authorization center, and security of an electric system is guaranteed further.