Circuits, methods, and apparatus that may provide power supply voltages in a safe and reliable manner that meets safety and regulatory concerns and does not exceed physical limitations of cables and other circuits and components used to provide the power supply voltages. One example may provide a cable having a sufficient number of conductors to provide power without exceeding a maximum current density for the conductors. Another example may provide a cable having more than the sufficient number of conductors in order to provide an amount of redundancy. Current sense circuits may be included for one or more conductors. When an excess current is sensed, a power source in the power supply may be shut down, the power source may be disconnected from one or more conductors, or both events may occur.

A method for reducing aggregate power cost that includes determining an end device power consumption profile for each of a plurality of end devices, storing the end device power consumption profiles in a switching device configured to determine a desired power flow timing for each of the plurality of end devices, determining an optimal rate period with the switching device, determining, with the switching device, the desired power flow timing for each of the plurality of end devices such that a power consumption of the plurality of end devices is preferably within the optimal rate period, and controlling, via the control device, the plurality of end devices such that the desired power flow timing is substantially obtained, thereby reducing aggregate cost per kWhr of the plurality of end devices.

A method for analyzing power quality events in an electrical system includes processing electrical measurement data from or derived from energy-related signals captured by at least one of a plurality of metering devices in the electrical system to generate or update a plurality of dynamic tolerance curves. Each of the plurality of dynamic tolerance curves characterizes a response characteristic of the electrical system at a respective metering point of a plurality of metering points in the electrical system. Power quality data from the plurality of dynamic tolerance curves is selectively aggregated to analyze power quality events in the electrical system.

A smart plug that is partitioned into a plurality of printed circuit boards (PCBs) in a three dimensional manner to reduce its size. Aspects consider the effect of the possible increased internal temperature as the size of the smart plug is reduced. For example, thick metal foils connect various components of a smart plug to reduce heat dissipation within the smart plug. Also, a metal foil may transfer heat from contact metal on a PCB to a side wall of a plastic housing of the smart plug. The smart plug may comprise a computing device that obtains information identifying the attached electrical device and accesses device data about the time duration during which the attached electrical device exhibits transient characteristics. The computing device then uses the accessed data to effectively control the attached electrical device.

In a system for monitoring the operation of a current loop, which is fed by a current source and has a switching element, an evaluation unit is arranged at the output of the current loop, which evaluation unit is designed to identify a state of the switching element on the basis of the current flowing in the current loop. Furthermore, a signal generation device is arranged in the current loop, which signal generation device is connected to the switching element and is designed to generate a dynamic signal characterizing the state of the switching element in the current loop.

Provided are a method and apparatus for dynamically controlling electrical loads, a storage medium and an electronic apparatus. The method includes that: a current capacity balance of a user sub-region is acquired from an intelligent electricity monitoring and metering terminal through a mobile terminal; when the current capacity balance is smaller than a load power of an electric consumption device to be started in the user sub-region, a regional coordination control apparatus or a server is requested through the mobile terminal to adjust and increase a capacity allocated for the user sub-region, such that a capacity balance will be greater than or equal to the load power; and whether to allow to start the electric consumption device is determined according to a decision replied by the regional coordination control apparatus or the server.

A system and method for modeling, controlling and analyzing electrical grids for use by control room operators and automatic control provides a multi-dimensional, multi-layer cellular computational network (CCN) comprising an information layer; a knowledge layer; a decision-making layer; and an action layer; wherein each said layer of said CCN represents one of a variable in an electric power system. Situational awareness/situational intelligence is provided therefrom so that the operators and grid control systems can make the correct decision and take informed actions under difficult circumstances to maintain a high degree of grid integrity and reliability by analyzing multiple variables within a volume of time and space to provide an understanding of their meaning and predict their states in the near future where these multiple variables can have different timescales.

A power system stabilization method includes: receiving a power command value from a power control center that monitors a power system; transmitting the power command value to a power supply device; causing the power supply device to supply power to the power system according to the power command value; generating a prediction command value according to past power command values received from the power control center, the prediction command value being a prediction value of a power command value to be transmitted from the power control center next after the power command value; transmitting the prediction command value to a power supply device; causing the power supply device to supply power to the power system according to the power prediction command value; receiving the next power command value from the power control center; transmitting the next power command value to the power supply device.

The responsive load control method manages the allocation and adjustment of service triggering grid frequencies across a population of responsive loads. The responsive load control method is particularly suited to responsive loads that have substantially no duty cycle or which have a long duration (>1 hr) duty cycle. With this responsive load control method provision of the responsive load service is shared fairly amongst the population of contributing responsive loads.

A supply and demand control device includes: a first communication unit which communicates, via a communication network, with an electrical device which belongs to a customer and consumes power from a power system; and a control unit which obtains a frequency of the power system, and start observation control if the obtained frequency falls below a lower limit of a predetermined frequency range, in which in the observation control, the control unit determines start time for reducing power consumption by the electrical device via the first communication unit, based on a rate of change in frequency obtained after the observation control is started, and starts reducing the power consumption at the start time if the obtained frequency does not return to within the predetermined frequency range within an observation duration which is a duration from start of the observation control to the start time.