Building Energy Usage Auditing, Reporting, and Visualization
First Claim
1. A method for monitoring and reporting the energy usage of a building, comprising:
- collecting energy-related information about a building;
deriving contextual information on energy usage of the building by computationally modeling the energy usage of the building using the energy-related information;
measuring actual energy usage of the building; and
reporting the actual energy usage of the building with the contextual information on energy usage.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods for energy monitoring and for providing the user with contextual information on the energy usage of a building area are disclosed. The methods may comprise performing an energy audit of a building and using the audit data and a building physics simulator to construct a computational model of the building'"'"'s energy usage. An energy budget may be derived based on the computational model. The building'"'"'s actual energy usage is reported with contextual information on energy usage from the computational model, the energy budget, historical data on energy usage, and other sources. The systems generally include energy monitoring hardware, a building physics simulator engine, and an interface. The interface may be implemented in hardware or software. The components of the system may be located in one building, or a central monitoring station with a building physics simulator engine may communicate with energy monitoring hardware in several buildings.
228 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for monitoring and reporting the energy usage of a building, comprising:
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collecting energy-related information about a building; deriving contextual information on energy usage of the building by computationally modeling the energy usage of the building using the energy-related information; measuring actual energy usage of the building; and reporting the actual energy usage of the building with the contextual information on energy usage. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A system for monitoring and reporting the energy usage of a building, comprising:
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a simulator that accepts energy-related information on a building, produces a computational model of energy usage, and derives contextual information about energy usage from the computational model; an energy monitor that determines an actual energy usage for the building; and an interface that receives the actual energy usage for the building and the contextual information and reports the actual energy usage with the contextual information. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
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13. The system of claim 13, wherein the interface comprises a hardware interface located within the building.
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18. A system for monitoring the energy usage of a plurality of buildings, comprising:
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a simulator that accepts energy-related information on a plurality of buildings, produces a computational model of energy usage for each of the plurality of buildings, and derives contextual information on energy usage for each of the plurality of buildings based on the respective computational models; a plurality of energy monitors, each of the plurality of energy monitors being adapted to determine the actual energy usage for one of the plurality of buildings; and an interface server that receives the contextual information and the actual energy usage and communicates with one or more client devices using a communications network to report the actual energy usage with the contextual information. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification