Web bridged energy management system and method

• US 6,636,893 B1
• Filed: 09/28/2000
• Issued: 10/21/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: France Brevets SAS
• Original Assignee: Itron, Inc.
• Inventors: Fong, Dale M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU HA T
• Application Number:
  US09/676,418
• Time in Patent Office: 1,118 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/217, 709/223, 709/224, 725/63, 700/295, 370/254, 370/252, 340/825
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/2513 Arrangements for monitoring electric power systems, e.g. power lines or loads; Logging
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 22/00 Arrangements for measuring time integral of electric power or current, e.g. electricity meters
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00002 characterised by monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00004 characterised by the power network being locally controlled
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00028 involving the use of Internet protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/12 The local stationary network supplying a household or a building
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/008 involving trading of energy or energy transmission rights
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 80/14 District level solutions, i.e. local energy networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/128 involving the use of Internet protocol
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/10 Energy trading, including energy flowing from end-user application to grid

Abstract

An web-bridged energy and facilities management system and method is provided wherein a user of an individual system may be automatically logged into multiple different systems. The system also permits data from many individual sites to be accumulated at a single site, data from one site to be distributed to many sites and a pyramid arrangement to be used. The system permits individual energy management sites to be connected together using the web bridge.

Claims

1. An apparatus for sharing energy management data over a computer network, comprising:

one or more energy management systems that each collect energy management data;

one or more web bridge devices wherein each web bridge device connects an energy management system to the computer network so that a predetermined configuration of energy management systems is formed;

means for authenticating a user onto a first energy management system using an identification wherein the user accesses the system using a client system;

means for caching the identification of the user, wherein the caching means comprises means for caching the user identification in a browser application being executed by the client system being used by the user; and

means for automatically authenticating the user to a second energy management system in the predetermined configuration by providing the cached identification to the other energy management system so that energy management data is shared between the energy management systems in the configuration, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises a pyramid having a destination energy management system and one or more levels of source energy management systems wherein data from the source energy management systems is aggregated in the destination energy management system.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the automatic authentication means further comprises means for generating a cross reference table for the user that uniquely maps pieces of data in the first energy management system to pieces of data in the second energy management system so that the user accesses pieces of data on the second energy management system.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises one or more source energy management systems connected to a destination energy management system to collect energy management data at the destination energy management system.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises one or more destination energy management systems connected to a source energy management system to disseminate energy management data from the source energy management system to the destination energy management systems.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein each energy management system has a unique uniform resource locator (URL) and wherein the cross-reference table further comprises means for generating a unique identifier for each piece of data comprising the URL of the energy management system that originated the piece of data and a PointID that uniquely identifies the piece of data in the originating energy management system.

6. A method for sharing energy management data over a computer network, comprising:

collecting energy management data at one or more energy management systems;

connecting each energy management system to a computer network using a web bridge device so that a predetermined configuration of energy management systems is formed;

authenticating a user onto a first energy management system using an identification wherein the user accesses the system using a client system;

caching the identification of the user, wherein the caching further comprises caching the user identification in a browser application being executed by the client system being used by the user; and

automatically authenticating the user to a second energy management system in the predetermined configuration by providing the cached identification to the other energy management system so that energy management data is shared between the energy management systems in the configuration, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises a pyramid having a destination energy management system and one or more levels of source energy management systems wherein data from the source energy management systems is aggregated in the destination energy management system.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the automatic authentication further comprises generating a cross reference table for the user that uniquely maps pieces of data in the first energy management system to pieces of data in the second energy management system so that the user accesses pieces of data on the second energy management system.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises one or more source energy management'"'"'systems connected to a destination energy management system to collect energy management data at the destination energy management system.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the predetermined configuration comprises one or more destination energy management systems connected to a source energy management system to disseminate energy management data from the source energy management system to the destination energy management systems.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein each energy management system has a unique uniform resource locator (URL) and wherein the cross-reference table further comprises generating a unique identifier for each piece of data comprising the URL of the energy management system that originated the piece of data and a PointID that uniquely identifies the piece of data in the originating energy management system.