System and methods that facilitate the introduction of market based economic models for electric power
First Claim
1. A metering/billing system that when introduced into an existing electric power company facilitates its transition away from present electric utility'"'"'s cost based, fixed rate, regulated economic model into advanced market based, competitive deregulated economic models, is comprised of:
- a multiplicity of smart meters each being comprised of;
means to measure energy consumption per long unit of time;
means to sequentially store numbers representing said measured energy consumption, with said numbers being accumulated over a meter read cycle;
means to measure time duration of any power outage condition and cumulatively store outage duration times over said meter read cycle;
means to permanently store customer ID(identification) code and semi-permanently store current choice-of-supplier code; and
a means to respond to properly addressed meter-reader radio commands by reading out said smart meter'"'"'s stored information for transmission to a meter reader;
a number of smart-meter-readers each comprised of;
means to initiate an interrogation of a particular smart meter;
means to store information being received;
means for generating a calendar-time tag for when each smart meter begins interrogation; and
means to transfer said meter reader'"'"'s information, gathered from many smart meter interrogations, to a billing computer; and
saidbilling computer is programmed;
to receive and appropriately segregate inputted meter reader relayed information;
to assign a calendar-time number to each said long unit-of-time over a billing cycle, referencing each said calendar-time number from said meter reader'"'"'s calendar-time tag;
to use choice-of-supplier code to pick the appropriate supplier-provided look-up calendar-time/price listing and using said assigned calendar-time to select price from said listing;
to compute each bill from said selected price, and energy consumed over each long unit-of-time interval; and
to use cumulative power outage time data to generate an annualized reliability factor for each customer, from which said bill is appropriately adjusted.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A smart meter/billing system that eases the transition to commodity-like marketplace operations for electric power, and supports near real-time load balancing between competing suppliers of electric power. Existing watt-hour meters become multi-parameter terminals or smart meters that measure consumption per unit of time correlatible to calendar-time, measure near real-time demand, measure reliability, store information and transmitting it to a smart meter reader when properly interrogated. The smart reader periodically sends its accumulated information to a billing computer. An optional ancillary system uses the same smart meters to support automatic load balancing between competing suppliers that share common distribution facilities. Supplier designated demand increments from possibly millions of consumers, are summed according to the supplier-of-record, over near real-time intervals. These sums are used by the suppliers to adjust their output power so it equals the actual, near real-time demand of their customers-of-record at any time.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A metering/billing system that when introduced into an existing electric power company facilitates its transition away from present electric utility'"'"'s cost based, fixed rate, regulated economic model into advanced market based, competitive deregulated economic models, is comprised of:
a multiplicity of smart meters each being comprised of; means to measure energy consumption per long unit of time;
means to sequentially store numbers representing said measured energy consumption, with said numbers being accumulated over a meter read cycle;
means to measure time duration of any power outage condition and cumulatively store outage duration times over said meter read cycle;
means to permanently store customer ID(identification) code and semi-permanently store current choice-of-supplier code; and
a means to respond to properly addressed meter-reader radio commands by reading out said smart meter'"'"'s stored information for transmission to a meter reader;a number of smart-meter-readers each comprised of;
means to initiate an interrogation of a particular smart meter;
means to store information being received;
means for generating a calendar-time tag for when each smart meter begins interrogation; and
means to transfer said meter reader'"'"'s information, gathered from many smart meter interrogations, to a billing computer; and
saidbilling computer is programmed;
to receive and appropriately segregate inputted meter reader relayed information;
to assign a calendar-time number to each said long unit-of-time over a billing cycle, referencing each said calendar-time number from said meter reader'"'"'s calendar-time tag;
to use choice-of-supplier code to pick the appropriate supplier-provided look-up calendar-time/price listing and using said assigned calendar-time to select price from said listing;
to compute each bill from said selected price, and energy consumed over each long unit-of-time interval; and
to use cumulative power outage time data to generate an annualized reliability factor for each customer, from which said bill is appropriately adjusted.- View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A smart meter adapter which converts existing watt-hour meters into smart meters, is comprised of:
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means to count rotations of a spinning disc over long unit-of-time intervals means for storing long unit-of-time energy consumption counts in sequential order over an entire billing period; means for indicating cumulative time per billing cycle that available AC voltage level was unacceptable; means for identifying a customer connected with each smart meter; means for storing and reading out choice-of-supplier code, means for erasing &
replacing said choice-of-supplier'"'"'s code when so directed by a meter-reader, said meter reader also transmits new choice-of-supplier code to a designated smart meter on premises of a customer requesting a new supplier;means for transferring all stored smart meter information to a smart-meter reader, said transfer being triggered by receipt of correctly addressed request to execute. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8)
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9. Method for providing fault detection and fault localization in a system consisting of a plurality of smart meters, remote terminals, and a common transmission-line, is comprised of the following steps;
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receiving a sample of demand-messages coming from customers spread along said transmission-line; detecting any discontinuities in what would normally be a continuous series of demand-messages; identifying the discontinuity type, which would define the nature of the fault; identifying the time slot in which said discontinuity first appeared, as a first step in localizing said fault; and associating every said time slot with a street address through a listing, and picking out the address co-listed with said time slot to complete the fault localization.
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10. Method for converting an existing electro mechanical watt-hour meter into a smart meter, comprising the steps of:
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inserting means for electronically marking each spinning disc rotation with a pulse; counting said pulses over predetermined long and short time intervals; transferring each said long interval count to a buffer memory where each count is stored in sequence, for an entire billing cycle; combining each said short-interval count number with a customer choice-of-supplier'"'"'s code, said combination becoming a demand message, said choice-of-supplier code is stored in an EEPROM (electronically erasible programmable read only memory), and said demand message is modulated onto an RF carrier that propogates on 60 Hz wiring to reach a remote terminal; sensing and accumulating power outage duration time over a billing cycle; transferring out accumulated long interval counts, said long counts being readout to a smart meter reader in the reverse sequence that they were originally read-in, with consumer'"'"'s ID, and power outage time, said transfer being executed by radio signals received and transmitted between the meter reader and the smart meter; and erasing and inserting a new choice-of-supplier code into said EEPROM when so indicated by the meter reader.
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Specification