Consumers experiment with different ways of reducing household energy usage. For example, consumers may turn off air conditioning during certain parts of the day, run certain appliances only during the early morning hours, and replace large inefficient appliances with smaller energy efficient ones. Additionally, consumers may use measuring devices to calculate the energy usage rate of a particular device. Then, depending upon the measured energy usage, a consumer may decide to turn the device on and off to adjust the home's overall energy usage.
However, there exist limitations as to the current system for measuring the energy usage of a particular device. While a device's energy usage may be determined for a given point in time, it is unclear what this determination means. For example, an energy usage measurement might specify that a device is using 2 kilowatts per hour. While this information may be useful to a scientist, the average consumer is not well acquainted with the kilowatt. Furthermore, it is not clear to the consumer what the 2 kilowatts per hour static measurement means in context with the energy usage of a possible new device, other devices, and/or the entire household of devices. Thus, current energy usage measurements are cryptic and not very useful to the average consumer.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds