The present invention relates to an intelligent energy control system to be connected to power lines e.g. in a building. The invention further relates to a power line interface and a PC interface to be used in an intelligent energy control system.
With the existing electricity systems as of today a central monitoring of solely the total measurement of the energy consumption is achievable.
It is not possible to measure the exact amount of energy consumed at each single power outlet. This old-fashioned central monitoring of the energy consumption does not provide the owner with an insight concerning the amount of energy which is consumed at a particular outlet.
If the monitoring of all the energy consumed in each single power outlet was feasible, it would enable the owner to keep track of the energy consumption in each single outlet and this would give the owner an awareness of unnecessary energy consumption in the building.
However, there is one known way to monitor the energy consumed in separate electricity outlets. The attachment of an electricity meter on the outside of an existing power outlet can monitor the energy consumed in that particular outlet. This method has a limitation given that, in this way it is only the electricity consumed in that particular power outlet that is monitored, so an overall identification of energy used in each single outlet demands attachment of an electricity meter on the outside of every power outlet in the building. At the same time, an external electricity meter will take up room and it is not aesthetic in the regard of a design perspective. Furthermore, the measurement will only be in real-time, and not presented with historic data.
The object of the invention is to solve the above mentioned problems.
The present invention relates to an intelligent energy control system to be connected to power lines e.g. in a building, said system comprises power line interfaces such as outlets and switches. The system further comprises a PC interface and wherein both said power line interfaces and said PC interface are adapted to be connected to said power lines and to transmit and receive information signals via said power lines,
The invention further relates to a power line interface and a PC interface to be used in an intelligent energy control system as described above.
By using a system according to the invention e.g. in a building as an interface between power lines and electrical devices connected to the power lines (energy consumers), it is possible to get a better control of the energy consumption consumed via the power lines in e.g. a building and this leads to energy saving in connection with electricity consumers.
In the following, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described referring to the figure, where
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The PC communicates via the PC interface with the power line interfaces via the phase coupler (FC) 113. The PC interface 103 processes information and commands to and from the PC by adding and reading information on the power line. The PC interface also makes sure that the units, switch 107, outlets 109 and switch with outlet 111 are up-to-date. The power line interfaces e.g. a switch 107, outlets 109 and switch with outlet 111 enable monitoring of energy consumption from every single unit and send the data via the main power lines 105 and the phase coupler 113 to the PC interface 103 e.g. for a graphical representation of the energy consumption in the house on a PC screen. This monitoring of energy consumption from every single outlet enables a complete overview of where and when energy is consumed in the different rooms and outlets of the building. The PC interface further comprises storage means for logging the amount of energy consumed and measured and received from every single power line interface. Besides this logging, the PC interface also logs the usage pattern of each power line interface, e.g. when and how the light has been switched on and off. Further, by storing this energy consumption on a power line interface, specific basis data can be used for making different statistics, and it is via a PC connected to the PC interface possible to present the usage over predefined time intervals such as the latest 24 hours, the latest week or month. Further, energy consumption on specific days could be compared.
The system is further via the PC programmable. This means that an outlet can be configured to be turned on or off in a specific time period. As an extended option, an outlet can be configured to turn off at a specific time only if the outlet is not in use, but delay the turn off time if the outlet is in use. The specific unit can tell if the outlet is in use or not by monitoring the current energy consumption of that specific outlet. Since the system is programmable and flexible you can save energy by programming specific electronic equipment connected to the outlets to be switched off instead of letting them stay standby.
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This integrated motion sensor can also be programmed to control other units via power line communication. This enables turning on multiple lights in e.g. the living room after entering the hall where an outlet has this motion sensor integrated in the outlet. This is programmed from the PC connected to the PC interface and the communication is performed via the power lines.
The CPU illustrated in each of the above described power line interfaces could comprises different kinds of control logic for controlling the unit, e.g. it could be a possibility that instead of immediately turning light on/off, it could instead be turned on over a period of e.g. an hour, starting with a very dimmed light and gradually increasing the light effect until the light is on full power. The functionalities could be controlled via input from the PC interface.
Besides the communication between power line interfaces and the PC interface, the power line interfaces also communicate with each other via the power lines. This communication could e.g. be that a power line interface being a switch communicates with an outlet to turn on/off energy deliverance to a power line interface comprising an outlet.
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A further usage of the received energy consumption data from the individual power line interfaces, besides making the different statistics based on the energy consumption data, could also be to use the data to control the power line interfaces, e.g. via an adaptive control algorithm integrated in either the PC interface or in a PC connected to the PC interface. In an example the control algorithm could initially be predefined, e.g. via settings obtained from a user during setup of the system, and then based on the usage pattern measured via the energy consumption data the algorithm automatically adapts to the behavior of the user.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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09003868.8 | Mar 2009 | EP | regional |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/DK2010/000034 | 3/17/2010 | WO | 00 | 9/28/2011 |