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US 10,950,924 B2Granted
Priority-based energy management
AssigneeLennox Industries Inc.
InventorWojciech Grohman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for controlling operation of a plurality of appliances includes first and second appliances. The first appliance is configured to report a power consumption via a network. A second appliance is configured to operate dependent on the power consumption reported by the first appliance.
Claims20
A system for controlling operation of a plurality of appliances, comprising:
- a first appliance configured to report a power consumption;
- a second appliance configured to operate based on the power consumption reported by the first appliance;
- and
- a load controller configured to:
- determine for the first and second appliances, respective first and second operating priorities based on an integral of historical or future priority functions associated with each of the first and second appliances;
- utilize a cost function to determine cost of power received during different time periods and lower the operating priorities during peak pricing periods to reduce cost of operating the system;
- and
- control the operation of the first and second appliances based on the operating priorities.
5 more elements
A method of manufacturing a network of appliances, comprising:
- configuring a first appliance to report a power consumption;
- configuring a second appliance to operate dependent on the power consumption reported by the first appliance;
- and
- configuring a load controller to:
- determine for the first and second appliances, respective first and second operating priorities based on an integral of historical or future priority functions associated with each of the first and second appliances;
- utilize a cost function to determine cost of power received during different time periods and lowering the operating priorities during peak pricing periods to reduce cost of operation;
- and
- control the operation of the first and second appliances based on the operating priorities.
5 more elements
A load controller for controlling a networked plurality of appliances, comprising:
- a processor configured to execute program instructions stored by a program memory;
- a priority calculation module defined by the program instructions that is configured to:
- calculate operating priorities of first and second networked appliances based on an integral of historical or future priority functions;
- utilize a cost function to determine cost of power received during different time periods and lower the operating priorities during peak pricing periods to reduce cost of operation;
- and
- the processor being further configured to control the operation of the first and second networked appliances based on the operating priorities.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.