LIGHTING PERFORMANCE POWER MONITORING SYSTEM AND METHOD WITH OPTIONAL INTEGRATED LIGHT CONTROL

• US 20090292403A1
• Filed: 07/30/2009
• Published: 11/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gridpoint (Twenty First Century Utilities LLC)
• Original Assignee: Admmicro Properties LLC
• Inventors: Tamagni, Armand J. JR., HOWELL, Donald W., Blevins, Frank O., Vinson, Mark W., Campbell, Michael L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,898,026 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/292
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/2513 Arrangements for monitoring electric power systems, e.g. power lines or loads; Logging
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 21/133 by using digital technique
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 22/10 using digital techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/44 Testing lamps
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/10 Controlling the light source
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/165 following a pre-assigned programmed sequence; Logic control [LC]
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/17 Operational modes, e.g. switching from manual to automatic mode or prohibiting specific operations

Abstract

A light performance monitoring device and optionally integrated controller includes a monitor module that directly monitors energy usage of at least one energy load to generate at least one measurement of energy usage; a storage module stores a series of baseline values of energy usage of the energy load, a comparator module compares energy measurements made at predetermined intervals with the baseline values, and a notification module notifies a designated recipient that there is a deviation from the baseline values consistent with a burned out or non-operational light fixture, including but not limited to light bulbs or ballast devices. A control module optionally integrated with the light performance monitoring device can be operatively coupled to the monitor module to control energy usage by the at least one energy load via a data link in a predetermined manner that is based on the at least one measurement of energy usage.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring and controlling energy consumption, comprising:

a first component comprising a wide area network interface for communicating with a remote server;

a plurality of second components, each communicatively coupled with the first component, each second component comprising;

a plurality of input ports for receiving signals representative of a plurality of sampled voltage waveforms and a plurality of sampled current waveforms,

a processor configurable for using the received signals to concurrently monitor electrical energy consumption of a plurality of loads,

the configuration of the processor determinable by configuration information, stored in that second component, originating from the remote server, and comprising load-definition data specifying which voltage signal(s) and current signal(s) are to be used in calculating energy consumption for each load to be monitored by that second component, each second component supporting configurations in which both poly-phase and single phase loads can be monitored simultaneously, wherein

each of the second components is configured to transfer energy consumption data for their respectively monitored loads to the first component,

the first component further is configured to implement at least one load control algorithm, and

the first component is configured for centralized reporting of the energy consumption data from each of the second components, which can be accessed over the wide area network interface.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further implements remote management of the first component and the plurality of second components.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further implements alert reporting based on the transferred energy consumption data.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the first component comprises input ports for receiving one or more signals indicative of at least one environmental variable, a configuration of the first component implementing the at least one load control algorithm using data for the least one environment variable as an input.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the first component further locally stores information for baseline energy consumption values for one or more loads, the configuration further implementing the monitoring by periodically comparing load information with respective baseline values and indicating a fault if the comparison indicates deviation from its baseline value by more than a threshold.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein the first component and one of the second components form a module that implements both monitoring and control for the loads monitored by that second component.

38. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is configured to implement a load monitoring algorithm comprising establishing a baseline load value associated with a monitored load and to indicate a fault in a circuit providing power to the monitored load if the monitored load deviates from the baseline load value by more than a threshold.

2-20. -20. (canceled)

26. A system for monitoring energy consumption, comprising:

a plurality of ports;

one or more analog to digital converters, collectively having an input for each port, for receiving an analog signal through the port, and producing streams of digital samples from each received analog signal, wherein each of the analog signals represents either sensed current waveform or sensed voltage waveform information;

one or more processors coupled to the analog to digital converters for receiving the digital samples, and configured with code describing an embedded control algorithm for selecting, from among the streams of digital samples, streams to be used in determining power consumption for a plurality of monitored circuits, and performing power consumption calculations using those selected streams, wherein the embedded control algorithm further determines the power consumption calculations performed for each circuit and supports simultaneous monitoring of both single phase and polyphase circuits; and

a controller module, coupled for receiving, over a local communication interface, information resulting from the power consumption calculations, and comprising a wide area network interface to a remote server, the controller module for implementing at least one embedded control algorithm for controlling energy consumption of at least one of the monitored circuits, wherein

both the embedded control algorithm implemented by the controller module and the embedded control algorithm on the one or more processors are updatable over the wide area network interface using downloadable code.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the controller module comprises firmware for implementing housekeeping functions, and the embedded control algorithm uses a library of remotely updatable routines determining per cycle and per second power calculations.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the housekeeping functions comprise regularly toggling a monitored onboard heartbeat.

29. The system of claim 26, wherein the controller module is implemented on one of the one or more processors, such that the one processor implements a combined power monitor and power management device.

30. The system of claim 26, wherein the power consumption calculations determined by the embedded control algorithm on the one or more processors include per-phase and poly-phase load apparent power for a poly-phase circuit.

31. The system of claim 26, wherein the power consumption calculations determined by the embedded control algorithm on the one or more processors include harmonic distortion values of per-phase load currents for sensed current waveforms.

32. The system of claim 26, wherein the power consumption calculations determined by the embedded control algorithm on the one or more processors include harmonic distortion values for one or more voltage phases with respect to a neutral.

39. The system of claim 26, wherein the controller module is also for implementing at least one control algorithm for establishing a baseline load value for a monitored circuit, comparing the baseline load value to a measured load of the monitored circuit and indicating a fault if the measured load deviates from the baseline load value by more than a configurable threshold.

33. A device for power consumption monitoring and control, comprising:

a plurality of ports;

an analog to digital converter channel coupled to each of the ports for producing a digital output stream for each of the ports; and

a processor, configured by firmware and software

to sample the output ports responsive to a first hardware timer interrupt,

to maintain a heartbeat for monitoring software status,

to perform per-interval load calculations defined in a first library, and per-cycle load calculations defined in a second library, and

to implement an embedded web server, wherein

both the firmware and software are remotely updatable with data provided over a wide area communication network interface, and

the first library and the second library support simultaneous calculations for both single phase and polyphase loads.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the processor is configurable with a load control algorithm, that responsive to detecting an over-threshold condition, controls at least one of the loads for which load calculations are performed, the control being effected by the processor using commands indicated over a local area network separate from a communication lines providing inputs to the plurality of ports.

35. The system of claim 33, wherein the load calculations include per-phase and poly-phase load apparent power for a poly-phase circuit.

36. The system of claim 33, wherein the load calculations include harmonic distortion values of per-phase load currents for sensed current waveforms.

37. The system of claim 33, wherein the load calculations include harmonic distortion values for one or more voltage phases with respect to a neutral.

40. The system of claim 33, wherein one or more of the first library and the second library further support using an output of the load calculations in a comparison with a baseline value established for that output, and indicate a fault if the output deviates from the baseline value by more than a threshold.