Large buildings and industrial plants frequently have automation systems that control the infrastructure of the large buildings and the industrial plants. Energy management systems, which serve to control the connected components in an energy-efficient manner, may be provided as part of these automation systems. If both energy generators such as, for example, photovoltaic installations, and energy loads are provided, the generation and the consumption of energy can be coordinated. Besides merely management of the electrical energy, further forms of energy such as, for example, gas, steam and district heating may additionally be included.
The said automation systems with integrated management systems are relatively complex, and typically have to be adapted for the individual application, such that the provision of these systems requires a high initial investment. Whereas it would be advantageous, for ecological and economic reasons, to provide an energy management system also for other controlled facilities, for example residential buildings, retail business and smaller industrial plants, this is frequently unattractive because of the high initial investment and the complexity of adapting the systems, mentioned at the outset, to the particular application. For this reason, in the context of automation of buildings, typically only automation systems that control and monitor exclusively individual items of equipment in an energy-efficient manner are used. Also known are systems that can control the operation of individual loads, for example a washing machine, in dependence on operating parameters of a photovoltaic system.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds