Patent Application
20110140915
The present invention relates to a system for monitoring energy or carbon usage of one or more specific persons, and for providing personalized feedback of such usage.
Tracking of energy usage is customarily done for an energy-consuming device or devices by using meters to monitor the use of electrical, gas, oil and other energy sources. These meters are typically used to monitor a relatively large area, such as a home, an apartment, or commercial or non-commercial buildings. These meters measure an aggregate usage of energy and are very useful for determining overall trends of energy usage.
Current methods of monitoring energy consumption do not provide monitoring of the energy or carbon usage attributable to a “specific” person, by which is meant a unique person. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system that monitors the energy or carbon usage of one or more specific persons, and that provides feedback to the one or more specific persons or to others.
By way of definitions of various terms used in this specification, energy usage can be expressed in terms of carbon usage. In particular, energy usage relates to carbon consumption and subsequent carbon dioxide generation. Energy is usually derived from solar, hydrocarbons, nuclear, geothermal, hydro-power, wind and other natural sources. Once a power plant using one of the foregoing energy sources has been built, not all of them consume carbon; however, the current predominant energy source, hydrocarbons, does utilize carbon and creates carbon dioxide. Energy usage can be converted to an equivalent electrical energy usage, which in turn can be converted to a carbon equivalent usage. The United States Department of Energy provides conversions for electricity to carbon equivalents. In any event, the conversion from energy to carbon usage should take into account the fact that some forms of energy generation are relatively clean, such as hydroelectric and solar. Typically, however, the electrical energy distribution grids in any given area will make use of both “clean” and less clean electrical-generation methods. For a given grid, the percentage of clean and less clean sources are known and can be factored into the calculation of carbon usage by a specific person.
The invention, in a preferred form, is a system for providing personalized energy usage feedback. The system comprises means to determine respective energy-usage of a specific person for each of a plurality of energy-consuming devices. The foregoing means comprise power-usage sensors for the plurality of energy-consuming devices, allocation means for determining an estimated or measured allocation of power for each energy-consuming device that is attributable to the specific person, and means for determining the length of time of power usage that is attributable to the specific person. A feedback means provides feedback to the specific person of all or a subset of the respective energy-usage attributable to that person.
The foregoing invention provides a way to inform a specific individual of their respective energy or carbon usage, and to thereby empower that person to make conscious, and preferably real time, energy use choices that can reduce their energy or carbon use and therefor reduce what is popularly referred to as a “carbon footprint.”
Other advantages of the invention will become apparent from the remainder of this specification.
In the following drawings, like reference numbers refer to like parts:
A belief by the present inventors is that a specific (i.e., unique) person will be more motivated through the personal guilt or shame or positive reinforcement factors mentioned in the previous paragraph to reduce energy or carbon usage if that person has clear feedback concerning their energy- or carbon-usage decisions. A still further belief of the present inventors is that publicizing the energy or carbon usage feedback of a specific person to other persons, such as to co-workers or superiors in a company employing that person, will motivate the person to reduce energy or carbon usage whenever possible owing to the factors mentioned in the previous paragraph regarding public guilt or shame or positive reinforcement.
For ease of description, the further references to motivations for reducing energy or carbon usage will only refer to motivations based on guilt or shame. However, this should be considered as a shortened way to refer to motivations also based on the positive reinforcement factors resulting from feedback that are mentioned in the foregoing two paragraphs.
The system 10 of
Persons or ordinary skill in the art will find it routine to provide the necessary programming and, optionally, hardware or firmware design, to implement the functions described below.
With regard to data sources 14 for the first specific person when used in a room of a building of a company in which such specific person is employed, a specific person sensor 16 determines whether the specific person occupies the room. Many ways of determining the presence of a person in a room will be routine to those of ordinary skill in the art, such as the person wearing a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag or a bar code that is sensed, facial recognition or other biometric recognition techniques such as fingerprint or retinal scans, height and weight measurements at the entrance and exits of a room, or the use of a cell phone that provides a global positioning (GPS) signal to a cell phone tower, any of which may be used in conjunction with motion sensors. For instance, various of the foregoing sensing systems could be remain dormant—and therefore use very little or no energy—until a motion sensor detects that a person is entering a room.
The digital computer 12 may also receive user preferences for use of various energy sources, for instance, as indicated by block 18. Such preferences may be for the amount of light needed by the specific person, a tolerable temperature of the room, etc. User preferences may advantageously include a user-selected limit on energy or carbon usage for all or some subset of energy-consuming devices or goods or services, the exceeding of which will trigger an alarm that is fed back to the specific person. As used herein, “goods” are intended to broadly encompass buildings, fixtures and real estate, in addition to more traditional definitions of “goods” as used in the contracts.
A light-use sensor 20 determines how much power is being used by the specific person in connection with a respective energy-consuming lighting device, or how much power is being used by multiple persons in connection with the foregoing lighting device, if there are one or more other persons in the room.
When there are multiple persons who use a room, the digital computer 12 will preferably determine the last person to leave the room. The digital computer 12 will preferably allocate continued energy usage for one or more energy-consuming devices to that person if that person has the capacity to turn off said one or more energy-consuming devices before leaving the room, and has failed to do so. Such an allocation can be achieved in routine manner with an algorithm-processing structure 19 associated with digital computer 12. Algorithm-processing structure 19 may be realized by software programming of digital computer 12, or by firmware, by way of example.
A sensor 22 senses energy use from a heater-ventilation-air conditioning (HVAC) unit, by way of example, and provides energy-use data to the computer 12. As with the light-use sensor 22, the computer 12 preferably allocates energy usage to a specific person in the same manner as described above. This is also preferably true for other sensors, indicated by block 24, which may relate to energy-consuming devices such as audio-visual or computer equipment, a microwave oven or other appliances, by way of example.
The digital computer 12 will preferably have an internal clock or clocks to measure the length of time that the specific person uses each respective energy device. The product of power usage (e.g., watts) and duration of use provides a measure of energy usage, expressed, for instance, in kilowatt-hours.
Sensors 20, 22 and 24 all relate to power usage, as indicated by the French bracket for these sensors in
Although the various data sources 14 are shown with simple arrows connected to digital computer 12, the connections may be realized as one or more computer networks; as will be routine to persons of ordinary skill in the art.
The digital computer 12 will determine energy usage, and preferably carbon usage, for the specific person, and provide to that person feedback of that person's respective energy, and preferably, carbon usage. It is preferred that the feedback be in real time, so as to motivate the person to make appropriate decisions to reduce energy or carbon usage while these decisions are being made.
As mentioned above, energy usage can also be expressed in terms of carbon usage, whereby feedback of energy usage in terms of carbon usage is considered to be equivalent to feedback of energy usage.
With regard to the feedback outputs 30 for the first specific person,
Non-wireless feedback may be provided, as indicated in block 38, to computers, or wired phones, etc., and can be in any convenient form, such as graphical, textual, email, or audio.
Although
In addition to the wireless and non-wireless feedback arrangements 32 and 38 just described for the first specific person and the other outputs 44, 46, etc., for other specific persons, other access to the feedback data compiled in computer 12 is shown by a block 48. The arrow connecting block 48 to computer 12 has two arrowheads. The use of two arrowheads is meant to convey that an interested person or company can query the data compiled in computer 12, as might be desirable for a specific person who does not use one the more automated feedback outputs 30, 44, 46, etc., but who can access and query the data via a website, for instance. Beneficially, a bill payer, chief financial officer or other concerned person at a company can use the other access 48 by querying to learn which specific person consumes the most energy with a specific energy-consuming device or uses the most carbon with respect to temporary or permanent acquisition of goods or service. This will enable the company to consult with the responsible specific person, for instance, to counsel the person on how to reduce their energy or carbon usage. The company can also use comparative energy or carbon usage data to host competitions by providing special recognition to a person who achieves the least energy or carbon usage, or who exhibits the greatest reduction in energy or carbon usage. Other access 48 can also be used, for instance, by a public utility that supplies energy to learn of energy-usage patterns for the specific person, or for all specific persons whose energy or carbon usage is being monitored, by querying the data compiled in digital computer 12. Rather than querying for data, as mentioned earlier in several instances in this paragraph, a preprogrammed algorithm, implemented by algorithm-processing structure 19, could be used to provide the desired information.
Whereas digital computer 12 is shown in a single rectangle, it may in fact be comprised of different central processing units and different temporary or long-term data storage devices which cooperate together, and may be distributed in one or more computer networks.
Feedback outputs 30, 44 and 46 of
In order for a specific person to be publicly shamed, or feel guilty, about poor choices concerning energy or carbon usage, the feedback of such usage should be, preferably, clearly and quickly apparent to other persons. Thus,
For simplicity of illustration, in
In order to more be more easily understood by persons other than the associated specific person, all images 54a-54c preferably dynamically change at least every five seconds, and preferably change in a shorter amount of time, such as three or two seconds, and more preferably change continuously. This will provide an image which both attracts the attention of other persons and more intuitively identifies itself as an image of a tree. Thus, screen 54a indicates motion of the leaves of the tree shown, as might happen when a breeze of air flows through through the tree. Screens 54b and 54c each show a branch of the tree in phantom and that branch falling to the ground. In the actual respective scenes, a branch repeatedly falls to the ground, then appears as restored to the tree, and again falls. Other ways to show motion than as just described will be apparent to persons of ordinary skill in the art.
Rather than show flora in different states of health as in
Another way to visually indicate the energy or carbon usage of a specific person is to provide different background colors, as illustrated in
As shown in
The various screen images of the foregoing
One type of feedback about which the specific person may be highly interested would be the setting of a limit, via user preferences 18 of
Many types of screen images can be used with the current invention other than as illustrated herein. For instance, a bar graph (not shown) with a single bar could be shown, and the length of the bar could vary with the value of the number displayed, For instance, the numbers displayed could range from 0 to 100. The higher numbers (e.g., 100) could indicate high energy or carbon usage, and the bar for such a higher number could assume a red color, for instance, to indicate high energy or carbon usage. With this color scheme, a green color could indicate low energy or carbon usage, and a yellow color could indicate medium energy or carbon usage, by way of example. Further, the number displayed, and corresponding length of the bar, could indicate total energy or carbon used in a day, or the instantaneous rate of such usage, or some cumulative measure of such usage that could even extend back to the beginning of a person's life, probably based on an estimate. As an alternative to the foregoing display of a number on a bar graph, a constantly changing number related to ongoing energy or carbon usage could be displayed on a bar graph. The constantly changing numbers would be attention provoking.
The various feedback screen images described in connection with
The foregoing describes a system for personalized energy usage feedback, which informs one or more specific persons and others of their respective energy or carbon usage. This empowers the one or more persons to make conscious, and preferably real time, energy use choices that can reduce their energy or carbon use, or “carbon footprint,” and enables public shame and guilt to further motivate such persons to reduce their carbon footprint.
While the invention has been described with respect to specific embodiments by way of illustration, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true scope and spirit of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61251331 | Oct 2009 | US |
