METHOD OF DEMAND SIDE ELECTRICAL LOAD MANAGEMENT AND AN ASSOCIATED APPARATUS AND SYSTEM

• US 20100274405A1
• Filed: 11/11/2008
• Published: 10/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Eskom Holding Limited, Eskom Holdings Limited, UTIL Labs (Pty)., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Eon Consulting Pty., Ltd., Eskom Holdings Limited
• Inventors: Paul, Joe, Goehdart, Andrew Peregrin, Thomas, Rajeev
• Granted Patent: US 8,682,497 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/295
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/12 The local stationary network supplying a household or a building
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/14 The load or loads being home appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/60 Limiting power consumption in the network or in one section of the network, e.g. load shedding or peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/14 by switching loads on to, or off from, network, e.g. progressively balanced loading
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/30 Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for improving the carbon footprint of the management of residential or tertiary loads, i.e. smart grids as climate change mitigation technology in the buildings sector, including also the last stages of power distribution and the control, monitoring or operating management systems at local level
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/3225 Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/222 Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/242 Home appliances

Abstract

The present disclosure discloses a method (310, 330, 350, 370) of demand side electrical load management and an associated apparatus (104) and system (100). The method (310, 330, 350, 370) includes providing (336, 318) a consumer of electricity with an indication of instantaneous electricity consumption. The method (310, 330, 350, 370) further includes determining (382) an electricity consumption threshold for the consumer, in response to a determination that load limiting is required and providing (384, 356, 338, 320, 322) the consumer with an indication of the electricity consumption threshold and an indication of a time period within which the consumer must limit his/her electricity consumption to comply with the electricity consumption threshold. The method (310, 330, 350, 370) also includes interrupting (360, 340, 342, 324) supply of electricity to the consumer in response to the electricity consumption of the consumer violating the electricity consumption threshold after the time period has elapsed.

Claims

1. A method of demand side electrical load management, the method including:

providing a consumer of electricity with an indication of instantaneous electricity consumption;

determining an electricity consumption threshold for the consumer, in response to a determination that load limiting is required;

providing the consumer with an indication of the electricity consumption threshold and an indication of a time period within which the consumer must limit his/her electricity consumption to comply with the electricity consumption threshold; and

interrupting supply of electricity to the consumer in response to the electricity consumption of the consumer violating the electricity consumption threshold after the time period has elapsed.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, in which determining that load limiting is required includes at least one selected from the group comprising determining automatically the load limiting is required based on predefined load limiting criteria and receiving a user input from a user indicating that load limiting is required.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, which further includes monitoring the consumption of electricity by the consumer at a site remote from where the electricity is actually being consumed.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, in which interrupting the supply of electricity includes interrupting the supply of electricity at a remote site.

5. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims, in which providing the consumer with an indication of instantaneous electricity consumption includes sending an indication message to the consumer, the indication message being indicative of the instantaneous electricity consumption of the consumer.

6. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims, which includes receiving from the consumer a reset request message via a telecommunications network and, in response thereto, re-establishing the supply of electricity to the consumer.

7. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims, in which providing the consumer with the indication of the electricity consumption threshold includes sending a threshold message to the consumer.

34. A machine-readable medium embodying a set of instructions which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform a method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 8 inclusive or claims 18 to 22 inclusive.

8. An apparatus for demand side electrical load management, the apparatus including a communication arrangement operable to receive messages from a remote site and a display arrangement operable to display information, characterised in that:

the communication arrangement is operable to receive from a remote site an indication message indicative of an instantaneous electricity consumption, the display arrangement being operable to display visually the instantaneous electricity consumption; and

the communication arrangement is further operable to receive from the remote site a threshold message including an indication of an electricity consumption threshold and an indication of a time period within which the consumer must limit his/her electricity consumption to comply with the electricity consumption threshold.

9. An apparatus as claimed in claim 8, in which the communication arrangement is in the form of a wireless communication arrangement and is operable to receive wireless messages.

10. An apparatus as claimed in claim 8, in which the communication arrangement includes connection means for connection to an electrical network and is operable to receive PLC (Power Line Communication) messages.

11. An apparatus as claimed in any of claims 8 to 10 inclusive, which is operable to countdown and display a time remaining within which the consumer must limit his/her electricity consumption.

12. An apparatus as claimed in any of claims 8 to 11 inclusive, which includes an acoustic transducer operable to emit an audible beeping alert indicative of receipt of the threshold message, a frequency of the beeps being dependent on a difference between current electricity consumption and the consumption threshold.

13. An apparatus as claimed in any of claims 8 to 12 inclusive, which is operable, upon initialisation thereof, to send an initialisation message.

32. A system for demand side electrical load management, the system including:

a plurality of apparatus as claimed in any of claims 8 to 13 inclusive;

at least one remote controller as claimed in any of claims 14 to 17 inclusive, in communication with the apparatus;

at least one master controller as claimed in any of claims 23 to 26 inclusive, in communication with the remote controller; and

at least one computer server as claimed in any of claims 27 to 31 inclusive, in communication with the master controller.

33. A system as claimed in claim 32, in which each of the apparatus, the remote controller, and the master controller are modular and can be replaced in response to failure thereof and, in response to the failure, the replacement is operable to receive configuration messages from the remaining components of the system thereby automatically to configure the replacement.

14. A remote controller for demand side electrical load management, the remote controller including:

a plurality of electrical connections respectively for supplying electricity to a plurality of remote loads;

a plurality of electrical switches respectively associated with the electrical connections;

at least one electricity measurement device for measuring electricity supplied to or consumed by each of the loads; and

a communication arrangement operable to;

send an indication message to a master controller, the indication message indicative of the electricity supplied to or consumed by the loads;

receive from the master controller an interrupt message indicating electricity supply is to be interrupted to at least one of the loads; and

the remote controller being operable to toggle the switch, in response to receipt of the interrupt message, thereby to interrupt supply of electricity to the at least one load.

15. A remote controller as claimed in claim 14, in which the communication arrangement is further operable to send the indication message to an apparatus for demand side electrical load management, for display on the apparatus of an instantaneous electricity consumption.

16. A remote controller as claimed in claim 15, in which the communication arrangement is operable to receive a re-establishment message from the master controller, the remote controller being operable to re-engage the switch, in response to receipt of the re-establishment message, thereby to re-establish electricity supply to the loads.

17. A remote controller as claimed in any of claims 14 to 16 inclusive, which is operable to interrupt electricity supply temporarily to a particular electrical connection and thereafter to receive an initialisation message from the apparatus confirming the electricity supply was interrupted, thereby to confirm that the particular apparatus is indeed associated with the particular electrical connection.

18. A method of demand side electrical load management, the method including:

receiving from each of a plurality of electricity measurement devices at a remote controller a consumption message indicative of electricity consumption of at least one load supplied by the remote controller;

calculating, in response to a determination that there is insufficient supply of electricity to satisfy the consumption of the loads, an electricity consumption threshold for which there is sufficient supply; and

sending to at least one of the remote controllers a threshold message indicative of the electricity consumption threshold.

19. A method as claimed in claim 18, in which calculating the electricity consumption threshold includes calculating an independent electricity consumption threshold for each of the remote controllers.

20. A method as claimed in claim 18 or claim 19, in which the threshold message includes a time period within which to comply with the electricity consumption threshold.

21. A method as claimed in any of claims 18 to 20 inclusive, which includes sending an interrupt message to the remote controller, the interrupt message directing the remote controller to interrupt supply of electricity to at least one load controlled by the remote controller.

22. A method as claimed in any of claims 18 to 21 inclusive, which includes saving on a statistics database consumption statistics of the plurality of loads controlled by the remote controller.

23. A master controller for demand side electrical load management, the master controller including:

a communication arrangement operable to;

receive from a remote controller at a remote site an indication message, the indication message indicative of the electricity supplied to or consumed by each of a plurality of loads; and

send to the remote controller an interrupt message indicating electricity supply is to be interrupted to at least one of the loads.

24. A master controller as claimed in claim 23, which is further operable to determine whether or not the electricity consumed by each of the loads has been reduced to comply with an electricity consumption threshold and, in response to determining that the consumption of at least one load does not comply with the consumption threshold, to send an interrupt message to the remote controller directing the controller to interrupt supply of electricity to that load.

25. A master controller as claimed in claim 23 or claim 24, which is includes an energy balancing module which is operable to measure a total amount of electricity supplied to the remote sites and which is operable to compare the total amount of supplied electricity against the electricity supplied to each of the loads as indicated in the notification messages, thereby to determine whether or not all supplied electricity is accounted for.

26. A master controller as claimed in any of claims 23 to 25 inclusive, which is operable to generate and store unique energy consumption histograms all of its supplied loads.

27. A computer server for demand side electrical load management, the computer server including:

a communication arrangement for receiving a plurality of indication messages respectively from a plurality of remote controllers, the indication messages being indicative of electricity supplied to or consumed by respective loads of the respective remote controllers; and

a control module operable to calculate, in response to a determination that there is insufficient supply of electricity to satisfy the consumption of each of the loads, an electricity consumption threshold for which there is sufficient supply;

the communication arrangement further being operable to send a threshold message to at least one of the remote controllers, the threshold message indicative of an electricity consumption threshold below which there is sufficient supply.

28. A computer server as claimed in claim 27, in which determining that load limiting is required includes at least one selected from the group comprising determining automatically the load limiting is required based on predefined load limiting criteria or receiving a user input from a user indicating that load limiting is required.

29. A computer server as claimed in claim 27 or claim 28, in which the communication arrangement is operable to send an interrupt message to at least one of the remote controllers in response to a determination that at least one of the loads of that remote controller is violating the electricity consumption threshold.

30. A computer server as claimed in any of claims 27 to 29 inclusive, in which the control module is operable to generate and store unique energy consumption histograms all of the supplied loads.

31. A computer server as claimed in any of claims 27 to 30 inclusive, which is operable to receive a reset request message via a telecommunications network from a consumer and, in response thereto, to generate and send a re-establishment message to direct that electricity supply be re-established to that user.