Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – For cost/price – Utility usage
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-30
2003-09-09
Trammell, James P. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
For cost/price
Utility usage
C705S400000, C705S401000, C705S402000, C705S403000, C705S404000, C705S405000, C705S406000, C705S407000, C705S408000, C705S409000, C705S410000, C705S411000, C709S217000, C709S219000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06618709
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains generally to a method and/or a computer architecture for monitoring resource usage via a computer network, and more particularly to a method and/or a computer architecture for monitoring energy usage via local area networks (“LANs”) and/or global area networks such as the World Wide Web (“WWW” or “Web”).
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In many states, electricity consumers already have or soon will have choices when they purchase their electricity. The decades-old structure of area-specific monopolies for electricity is being changed under what is called “restructuring” or “deregulation.”
Deregulation of the electricity utility in California is given herein by way of illustration. The following discussion, however, is equally applicable to other jurisdictions and other utilities, wherein the utilities are being provided in a substantially free market environment. A California law dramatically changed the regulated market system that had been in place for more than eighty years for serving the electricity needs of California's homes, businesses, industry and farms. The law:
recognized that new technology and new federal laws allowed change from a highly regulated market structure to one that relies on competition to set the price of the generation component of electricity bills;
authorized retail competition, which allows customers to choose their electricity supplier; and
permitted new business opportunities to develop in buying, selling or brokering electricity for individual customers or customer groups.
Roughly 80 percent of electricity service in California is provided by three electric utilities owned by private investors and regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). In the old market structure, the investor-owned utilities were granted franchise areas in which they were given the exclusive right to provide electricity service. In exchange for this exclusive right, all aspects of their business have been regulated. The CPUC set the standards for electricity service, authorized utilities to invest in new facilities such as power plants, transmission lines or other equipment as necessary to meet their obligation to provide service to all customers, and set rates that different customers pay for electricity service. Although the CPUC will continue to set service standards and to regulate certain aspects of the new electricity market, much of the market structure will change.
The law essentially treats the major private utilities as having four distinct functions:
1. generation of electricity,
2. transmission of electricity along high voltage transmission lines,
3. distribution of electricity to customers with other customer services, and
4. metering and billing for electricity.
In the past, each of these functions had been performed by a single utility company, subject to regulatory oversight by the CPUC. Under the above-mentioned law, these functions are done partly by the utility company, partly through competitive businesses, and partly by new regulated entities created by the legislation.
Power plant owners have the opportunity to sell electricity to customers with whom they have negotiated sales contracts, to sell electricity into a general “pool” (the Power Exchange, described below) from which large customers and distribution utilities may draw to meet their needs, or to “aggregators,” which are firms that have signed contracts with many small customers to provide their electricity needs. Existing private utilities may sell many of their power plants to existing or possibly new power generation firms, and additional power plants will be constructed by power companies that are not utilities, all to assure an adequate level of competition. Thus, competition among potential generators of electricity will set the price for the electricity component of a customer's electricity bill. The role of regulators will be to make sure that competition is allowed to flourish and that no firms can dominate the market and set prices.
The distribution/customer service function, which encompasses moving electricity through a service area to customers, maintaining electricity lines, and providing metering and billing services, will largely remain monopoly activities at this time. The investor-owned distribution utility will continue to be regulated by the CPUC. Some of the services, however, now performed by the distribution/customer service company, such as metering and billing, power conditioning or backup, may be “unbundled” and provided by other private businesses in the future.
A steadily increasing percentage of customers located in the service territories of six of the seven investor-owned utilities will be allowed to shop for power in an open market. Customers will have “direct access” to generators. No longer restricted to buying power only from their local utility company, they should be able to compare one deal to another and pick the one which meets their preferences. I have determined that customer-specific packages of power and other services may advantageously be offered, so that the customer can choose the best overall value that meets their needs. For example, some companies may not need high levels of reliability, while others may need exceptional reliability. Other companies may be able to shift their loads to take advantage of lower prices at certain off-peak times.
For a customer of, for example, one of the six affected investor-owned utilities, I have determined that receipt of offers from competing electricity providers may depend on the amount electricity the customer consumes, either at one location or at all locations under the customer's control. Businesses with multiple locations, such as supermarkets and retail stores, I have determined, may combine the electrical load at all locations and contract with one service provider. At the outset of the restructured market, new electricity providers will likely approach large electricity users first, and smaller consumers later because of the relatively higher cost of signing up a large number of small consumers.
The second major feature of the law is creation of the Power Exchange (“PX”). The PX will accept a request to buy a quantity of electricity at a given price. The PX functions like an auction to match total demand for power with generation of power. The PX will create a “pool” or “spot market” where price information is publicly available. The PX will solicit bids from electricity generators and choose the lowest bidders until the PX has enough supply to meet the requests to buy power. PX prices may even change on an hourly basis. Many customers will pay for electrical power based on this price, either directly through their distribution utility or through a private power supply contract with terms that are pegged to the PX price. Thus, consumers who choose to enter into private contracts for power, where the terms, conditions and price are not public knowledge, may use the public information from the PX to gauge the attractiveness of supply or service offers they receive.
The information that is monitored is, for example, process-related information. For example, the process-related information may include energy or gas consumption, in terms of kilowatt-hours (kWh) on the electric side, or million cubic feet (Mcf) on the gas side. Other types of process-related data may also be used where the process data may advantageously be combined, for example, electricity, natural gas, gasoline, cable television, band width, telecommunications, short distance service, long distance service, water, Internet usage, radio usage, cellular usage, digital data (bits and/or quantities thereof) usage, satellite usage, and the like. Plainly, the instant invention may be adapted to any resource usage that may be monitored. Further, process-related data, as given by way of example above, may be aggregated among multiple users to present to a resource provider a larger than otherwise possible consumer block, which may demand price concessions b
Donner Irah H.
Enerwise Global Technologies, Inc.
Hale and Dorr LLP
Sherr Cristina
Trammell James P.
LandOfFree
Computer assisted and/or implemented process and... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Computer assisted and/or implemented process and..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Computer assisted and/or implemented process and... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3088151