System and Methods for Distributed Web-Enabled Monitoring, Analysis, Human Understanding, and Multi-Modal Control of Utility Consumption

Abstract

A system and methods that allow a utility or energy consumer to measure, visualize, understand, and control use of energy and other utilities is disclosed. These actions may be performed via a distributed web-enabled system. It derives and presents useful information for consumers by first providing a means for the assimilation (including real-time), maintenance, and modification of aggregated use data. The information is derived from the data by web-based software tools that provide comparison with models and the ability for consumers to share and compare their consumption. It can also include the ability to discuss and share (via text, voice, or computer algorithms) ideas and control strategies for saving energy and lowering energy use. Consumers may implement these control strategies in algorithms for manual; automatic scheduled; automatic scheduled with manual override; and dynamic rate-based control of energy/utility usage.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.