Modular energy load management

• US 8,626,319 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2010
• Issued: 01/07/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Weatherhead, Norman A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Masinick, Michael D
• Application Number:
  US12/893,715
• Publication Number:
  US 20120078431A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,196 Days
• Field of Search: 700/295, 700/296
• US Class Current: 700/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2203/20 Simulating, e g planning, reliability check, modelling or computer assisted design [CAD]
• 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 3/144 Demand-response operation of the power transmission or distribution network
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/3225 Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/222 Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/20 Information technology specific aspects, e.g. CAD, simulation, modelling, system security

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided that integrate a modular load management solution within a general control architecture. One or more load modules deployed within a controller act as interlocks to energy consuming field devices or machines fed by an energy distribution system within a facility. One or more feeder modules deployed within the controller collect energy supply data from an energy source or feeder on the energy distribution system. The load and feeder modules publish their energy demand and supply data to a virtual energy bus, which facilitates exchange of energy data between the load and feeder modules. The load modules, feeder modules, and virtual energy bus generate multiple views of the facility'"'"'s overall energy supply and demand status based on the energy data shared between the components, and perform automated load management for the energy distribution system based on the collected data.

Claims

1. A system for managing delivery and consumption of energy, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor that facilitates execution of computer-executable components stored within the memory, the computer-executable components comprising;

a feeder module deployed within an industrial controller; and

one or more load modules deployed within the industrial controller and respectively corresponding to one or more energy consuming devices;

wherein the feeder module is further configured to, in response to initiation of a load shedding mode, select a subset of the one or more load modules based on a comparison between a configurable priority threshold value associated with the feeder module and one or more configurable load priority values respectively associated with the one or more load modules, and to instruct the subset of the one or more load modules to switch a corresponding subset of the one or more energy consuming devices to a low-load state, and

wherein the feeder module is further configured to increment the configurable priority threshold in response to a determination that a total demand satisfies a criterion after an elapse of a defined time period after initiation of the load shedding mode.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the feeder module and the one or more load modules respectively comprise at least one input and at least one output, and wherein the at least one input and the at least one output are configured to interface with a program executing in the industrial controller.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the feeder module is further configured to receive supply data representing a total supply energy measured from an energy supply feeder, and the one or more load modules are further configured to receive demand data measured for the one or more energy consuming devices.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the demand data represents at least two different types of energy scaled in accordance with respective two different engineering units, and the computer-executable components further comprise at least one conversion module deployed within the industrial controller and configured to normalize the demand data to a common engineering unit in accordance with a configurable scaling parameter associated with the at least one conversion module.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the one or more load modules are further configured to publish the demand data to a virtual energy bus deployed in the industrial controller, and the feeder module is further configured to determine the total demand based on the demand data published to the virtual energy bus.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the feeder module is further configured to determine whether to initiate the load shedding mode based on an analysis of the demand data published to the virtual energy bus.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the feeder module is further configured to initiate the load shedding mode in response to a determination that a ratio of the total demand to the total supply energy satisfies the criterion.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the defined time period is a first defined time period, and a load module of the subset of the one or more load modules is configured to set a first bit in the industrial controller in response to a determination that an energy consuming device corresponding to the load module has not switched to a low-load state within a second defined time period after the initiation of the load shedding mode.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the load module is further configured to set a second bit in response to a determination that the energy consuming device corresponding to the load module has switched to the low-load state within the second defined time period after the initiation of load shedding mode.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the feeder module is further configured to estimate an amount of energy load that will be shed in response to the configurable threshold priority value being incremented.

11. A method for managing energy load, comprising:

initiating, by a feeder module executing within an industrial controller comprising at least one processor, a load shedding mode;

selecting, by the feeder module in response to the initiating, at least one load module executing within the industrial controller based on a comparison between a priority threshold value configured for the feeder module and at least one load priority value respectively associated with the at least one load module;

instructing the at least one load module to transition a corresponding at least one energy load to a low-load state; and

in response to determining that a total load of the at least one energy load satisfies a criterion after an elapse of a defined time period after the instructing, incrementing the priority threshold value.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

setting, by a load module of the at least one load module, a first bit in the industrial controller in response to a determination that an energy load corresponding to the load module has transitioned to a low-load state within another defined time period after the instructing; and

setting, by the load module, a second bit in the industrial controller in response to a determination that the energy load corresponding to the load module has not transitioned to the low-load state within the other defined time period.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the initiating comprises initiating the load shedding mode in response to determining that a ratio of the total load to a total available energy supply satisfies the criterion.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the selecting comprises selecting, as the at least one load module, one or more load modules respectively comprising an associated load shed priority value that is less than the priority threshold value associated with the feeder module.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving, by the feeder module, measured energy supply data from at least one energy source; and

receiving, by the at least one load module, measured demand data from the at least one energy load powered by the at least one energy source.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the receiving the measured demand data comprises:

receiving, by a first load module of the at least one load module, first demand data from a first energy load of a first energy type;

receiving, by a second load module of the at least one load module, second demand data from a second energy load of a second energy type; and

normalizing, by at least one conversion module executing within the industrial controller, the first demand data and the second demand data to a common engineering unit.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising initiating a rendering of one or more aggregated views of a current energy supply and an energy demand status on an interface using data generated by at least one of the feeder module or the at least one load module.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining, by the feeder module, at least one of the total load or a percentage of a total available energy supply consumed by the at least one energy load based on the measured demand data received by the at least one load module.

19. A system for aggregated load monitoring and management of one or more energy distribution systems, comprising:

a controller comprising at least one processor and having deployed therein a feeder module and one or more load modules;

wherein the controller is configured to;

in response to an initiation of a load shedding mode by the feeder module, select a subset of the one or more load modules based on a comparison between a configurable threshold priority value associated with the feeder module and one or more configurable load priority values respectively associated with the one or more load modules,

instruct the subset of the one or more load modules to switch a corresponding subset of one or more devices to a low-load state, and

in response to a determination that a total energy demand of the one or more devices satisfies a criterion after a defined time period has elapsed subsequent to the initiation of the load shedding mode, increment the configurable threshold priority value.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the defined duration is a first defined duration, and a load module of the one or more load modules is configured to set a bit in the controller in response to a determination that a device corresponding to the load module has not switched to a low-load state within a second defined duration after the initiation of the load shedding mode.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the feeder module is configured to receive energy supply data from an energy feeder, and the one or more load modules are configured to receive demand data from respective one or more devices powered by the energy feeder.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the controller further has deployed therein a virtual energy bus configured to generate, based on at least one of the energy supply data or the demand data, at least one of load data representing an energy load on the energy feeder, total load data representing the total energy demand reported by the one or more load modules as a percentage of a total energy supply, load shed status data representing a load shed status of the one or more devices, or load reset status data representing a load reset status of the one or more devices.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the controller is further configured to send a signal that instructs the subset of one or more devices to switch to the low-load state.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the defined time period is a first defined time period, and a load module, of the one or more load modules, is configured to generate a load shed status indication based on a determination of whether a device corresponding to the load module has switched to the low-load state within a second defined time period after sending the signal.