Air-Conditioning Management With Excess-Based Energy Control

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing air-conditioning energy saving control systems struggle to reduce monthly power consumption and ensure fairness among multiple air-conditioned areas, as basic electric bill rates are determined by contracted power, leading to limitations in lowering usage-based rates and potential unfairness in energy saving operations.

Innovation Solution

An air-conditioning management device that calculates overall and individual excess coefficients based on daily power consumption and monthly targets, determining energy saving control conditions to prioritize areas with higher excess coefficients, ensuring fair energy saving operations across multiple air-conditioned areas.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If energy saving control is performed based on user-set energy saving priority, then control simplicity is maintained, but fairness among plural air-conditioned areas cannot be secured

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecontrol simplicityVSAvoidfairness
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system uses feedback control by calculating excess coefficients from actual power consumption data and using these coefficients to objectively determine energy saving control settings. This feedback mechanism replaces subjective user priorities with objective data-driven control, ensuring fairness while maintaining operational simplicity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs self-service by automatically calculating excess coefficients and determining energy saving control settings without requiring continuous user input or judgment. The system serves itself by using its own consumption data to make fair and automatic control decisions across multiple air-conditioned areas.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Data Source

PatentEP3263999B1Air conditioning management device and air conditioning system using same
Publication Date: 2019.09.11 MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP
  • EP3263999B1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP3263999B1 patent drawingFigure 3
  • EP3263999B1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

An air-conditioning management device includes: a power consumption obtaining unit that obtains an overall power consumption amount in one day and individual power consumption amounts of respective plural air-conditioned areas; an overall excess coefficient calculation unit that calculates an overall excess coefficient indicating a degree of excess from an overall target value on a monthly basis; an individual excess coefficient calculation unit that calculates individual excess coefficients each indicating a degree of excess from the individual target value on a monthly basis; an excess determination unit that determines whether or not the overall excess coefficient is larger than a set threshold value; an energy saving control setting unit that sets energy saving control conditions for the respective plural air-conditioned areas to provide high energy saving effects in descending order of the individual excess coefficients when the overall excess coefficient is determined to be larger than the set threshold value; and an operation control unit that performs energy saving operation of the air-conditioning apparatuses based on the energy saving control conditions.