A system for managing house appliances supplied through a power grid is provided. Each house appliance operates according to at least one corresponding operative mode. Each operative mode comprises a sequence of operative phases. The system comprises at least one control unit interfaced with the house appliances for exchanging data. The at least one control unit collects power profile data comprising timing and electric power consumption data of each operative phase of each operative mode of the house appliances; generates a time schedule of the house appliances operations by distributing in time the execution of the operative phases thereof such that total power consumption of house appliances is kept under a maximum power threshold of the power grid; and controls the operation of the appliances based on the time schedule. The at least one control unit is configured to generate the time schedule by exploiting a Particle Swarm Optimization approach.

A system for managing house appliances supplied through a power grid is provided. Each house appliance operates according to at least one corresponding operative mode. Each operative mode comprises a sequence of operative phases. The system comprises at least one control unit interfaced with the house appliances for exchanging data. The at least one control unit collects power profile data comprising timing and electric power consumption data of each operative phase of each operative mode of the house appliances; generates a time schedule of the house appliances operations by distributing in time the execution of the operative phases thereof such that total power consumption of house appliances is kept under a maximum power threshold of the power grid; and controls the operation of the appliances based on the time schedule. The at least one control unit is configured to generate the time schedule by exploiting a Particle Swarm Optimization approach.

Determination of electrical network topology and connectivity are described herein. A zero-crossing is indicated at a time when the line voltage of a conducting wire in an electrical grid is zero. Such zero-crossings may be used to measure time within a smart grid, and to determine the connectivity of, and the electrical phase used by, particular network elements. A first meter may receive a phase angle determination (PAD) message, including zero-crossing information, sent from a second meter, hereafter called a reference meter. The first meter may compare the received zero-crossing information to its own zero-crossing information. A phase difference may be determined between the first meter and the reference meter from which the PAD message originated. The first meter may pass the PAD message to additional meters, which propagate the message through the network. Accordingly, an electrical phase used by meters within the network may be determined.

A distributed ledger based utility system architecture may be configured to enable secure payments, data transmission, and meter configuration of smart sensors. The utility system architecture may be a tiered architecture including multiple nodes at different levels of the architecture where each level may contain a different portion of the distributed ledger. As information is added to the distributed ledger, each portion of the distributed ledger may be updated based on whether the information is relevant to that node. The information may include rate contract transactions, meter configuration data transactions, payment transactions, or the like.

A modification of a sensor data management system to enable discrete sensor applications. A sensor data control system enables discrete sensor applications to control the configuration, collection, processing, and distribution of sensor data produced by selected sensors at various monitored locations. The sensor service offered by the sensor data control system can be leveraged by any sensor application having an interest in any part of one or more monitored locations.

The disclosure relates to a meter for monitoring usage of power provided by a power transmission system to a site. The meter comprises: a communication module to generate communications carried over the transmission system; a relay having a first position connecting power from the transmission system to the site and a second position disconnecting power; a request manager module to process messages from a head end associated with the transmission system; a meter module connected to a power feed associated with the transmission system to provide readings relating to the power used at the site; an event manager module to evaluate new events queued in a message queue received by the meter and after evaluating the new events to send a message to the head end relating to the earliest event in the message queue; a connection manager module managing the power connection to the transmission system.

A method includes receiving, from a first head end system (HES), a first raw file including a first set of events in a first HES specific format, and modifying the first set of events in the first raw file by a first HES adapter to create a first unified formatted file. The first unified formatted file is in a unified format, and the first HES adapter is connected to the first HES. The method further include transforming, by a core HES adapter, the first unified formatted file to a first data management formatted file according to a data management format, and consuming the first data management formatted file.

A meter includes a hermetically encapsulated electronic metering mechanism having a meter unit for the determination of meter readings, the metering mechanism including a data memory for storing the meter readings, and the metering unit including an antenna of a defined shape, and a readout unit arranged outside the metering mechanism for reading the meter readings from the data memory. The meter is operated according to a method for the determination of meter readings and for the wireless transmission of electrical energy. The shape of the readout unit antenna is identical to the shape of the metering unit antenna, wherein the congruent and predefined positioning of the readout unit antenna ensures an effective wireless energy supply to the metering unit by electromagnetic radiation through the readout unit, and, independently thereof, a stable wireless data coupling for the determination of meter readings between the metering unit and the readout unit.

A system and method are presented for collecting and retrieving characterization data of measurement devices, such as flow meters. The system includes a meter, a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag for storing the meter characterization data, and electronics, such as a totalizer, to read the characterization data from the RFID tag and calibrate the meter measurements using the characterization data.

The present invention is generally directed to systems and methods for learning appliance signatures based at least in part upon, energy disaggregation techniques and user input Methods of the present invention may include retrieving energy consumption data pertaining to at least one home environment comprising one or more appliances; identifying one or more patterns in the energy consumption data by applying signal processing algorithms to the consumption data; generating at least one question for a user based at least in part on the one or more patterns; receiving a user input In response to the question; determining at least one appliance in the home environment, based at least in part on the one or more patterns and the user input; and determining an appliance signature by extracting a canonical pattern from the energy consumption data based at least in part on the user input.