A solar energy thermostatic controller using a solid-state microcomputer that manages air mover(s) to supply heated air for building space heating. Methods includes microcomputer software for communicating with temperature sensors located at the solar heating source, the supply vent source and the building room/interior. The present invention thermostatic control device features a data logger to record temperatures and humidity history, and elapsed time usage history of solar heated air available from attics and crawl spaces; or solar collectors mounted in or on walls, rooftops, or exterior locations. The thermostatic control device manages use of limited solar heated air for building environmental control. Program controlled temperature set points manage an HVAC blower to gather solar heated air during the daily sunlight solar excursion and to control shutdown of the supply system when solar heated air temperature falls below present room/interior temperature. Methods include permanent memory storage of historical data.

A temperature control apparatus for a building, the apparatus comprising: an electricity generator, operable to contribute to an electrical power supply for consumer appliances at the building; a heat transfer circuit adapted to circulate heat transfer fluid to cool the electricity generator; a heating system comprising a heat source for providing heat energy to a space heater for heating at least one zone of the building and to a hot water tank arranged to store a supply of hot water for the building, and a heat exchanger adapted to supplement the heat energy from the heat source with heat energy obtained from the heat transfer circuit; a user interface adapted to enable a user to select at least one of (a) a desired temperature for the at least one zone of the building, and a first time period during which the desired temperature is to be maintained; and (b) a second time period for the supply of hot water from the hot water tank; and the apparatus further comprising: a controller configured to determine when to operate the electricity generator based on at least one of: (i) the thermal capacity of the hot water tank; and (ii) the first time period, the desired temperature and the current temperature of the at least one zone of the building.

Disclosed are methods and functional elements for enhanced thermal management of predominantly enclosed spaces. In particular, the invention enables the construction of buildings with reduced power requirements for heating and/or air-conditioning systems since under certain conditions less energy for heating or cooling is required to maintain, within certain boundaries, desirable temperatures inside such buildings, habitats, or other enclosed spaces.

In some instances the invention is in part based on dynamically changing functional elements with variable properties, or effective properties, in terms of their electromagnetic radiative behavior and/or their thermal energy storage properties, or the spatial distribution of the stored thermal energy, which permits the application of methods and algorithms to control the overall thermal behavior of the entire structure in such a way that desired levels of inside temperature can be reached with reduced consumption of external energy (typically electricity, gas, oil, or coal).

In some instances no conventional heating of cooling is required at all, whereas in other instances the expenditure of external energy for conventional heating or cooling is reduced. In some instances the invention enables the reduction of the time to reach desired temperatures inside such buildings, habitats, or other predominantly enclosed spaces.

In some instances the obtained sensor data may be used to detect the occurrence or imminently predicted occurrence of a catastrophic event, including but not limited to fire or flooding, internal or external to the predominantly enclosed space.

In some embodiments this information may support any single or any combination of locally or remotely alerting humans, alerting rescue units, activating countermeasures, uploading at least partially said sensor data to off-site computers, determining the cause(s) of said catastrophic event, determining liability, determining insure payments, determining insurance premiums.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for controlling an operation of an electronic cigarette. The method can include determining a total amount of vaporization energy required to vaporize an amount of liquid stored in a reservoir of an electronic cigarette. The method can include determining a total amount of atomizer power that is delivered to an atomizer associated with the electronic cigarette over a period of time. The method can include determining an amount of liquid remaining in the reservoir of the electronic cigarette, based on a comparison between the total amount of vaporization energy and the total amount of atomizer power delivered to the atomizer over the period of time.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for controlling an operation of an electronic cigarette. The method can include determining a total amount of vaporization energy required to vaporize an amount of liquid stored in a reservoir of an electronic cigarette. The method can include determining a total amount of atomizer power that is delivered to an atomizer associated with the electronic cigarette over a period of time. The method can include determining an amount of liquid remaining in the reservoir of the electronic cigarette, based on a comparison between the total amount of vaporization energy and the total amount of atomizer power delivered to the atomizer over the period of time.

A method of modulating the impact of electromagnetic irradiance on a predominantly enclosed space, including providing at least an inner shell of the predominantly enclosed space, placing a plurality of spatially adjustable functional elements in an exterior position relative to an outside facing surface of said inner shell and/or placing one or more panels, containers, or reservoirs, each including a thermal carrier medium, in or proximate to said predominantly enclosed space to increase the thermal capacity of the inner shell. A control system adjusts the position of the functional elements and/or the spatial distribution of the thermal carrier medium. The control system acquires data from one or more sensors and detects a catastrophic even related to the predominantly enclosed space.

An electric water heater tank adapted for connection to a controller, the tank including one or more electrical heating elements temperature sensing means mounted on the exterior of the tank wall and adapted to obtain a measurement of the temperature of the water in the tank, the temperature sensing means and each heating element being connected to an externally accessible connection means. The tank can include one or more heating element control means each connected to a corresponding one of the heating elements. The element control means can be connected to the externally accessible connection means.

A method for determining a preferential minimum power set point by a consumer i, said consumer including an electric water heater, the method including determining the state of the consumer i at an instant k; determining a minimum power set point P.sub.c.sup.min(i,k) at the instant k as a function of the state of the consumer i determined during the determining of the state of the consumer i at an instant k; determining a minimum power set point P.sub.c.sup.min(i,k+1:K) at the instants k+1 to K as a function of the predicted state of the consumer i estimated from the state of the consumer i determined during the determining of the state of the consumer i at an instant k; determining a preferential minimum power set point P.sub.c.sup.min_pref(i,k) as a function of the minimum power set point P.sub.c.sup.min(i,k) at the instant k and of the minimum power set point P.sub.c.sup.min(i,k+1:K) at the instants k+1 to K.

A controller for controlling energy consumption in a home includes a constraints engine to define variables for multiple appliances in the home corresponding to various home modes and persona of an occupant of the home. A modeling engine models multiple paths of energy utilization of the multiple appliances to place the home into a desired state from a current context. An optimal scheduler receives the multiple paths of energy utilization and generates a schedule as a function of the multiple paths and a selected persona to place the home in a desired state.

A conditioning or heating plant and a process of controlling the plant, wherein plant comprises at least one circuit for distributing a carrier fluid, having a delivery line, a return line, and a plurality of channels directly or indirectly connected to the delivery line and return line and configured for supplying respective environments to be conditioned and/or heated, at least one heat treatment central group placed on the circuit. The plant has, for each of the channels, at least one respective heat exchange unit and at least one flow-rate regulator.