Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – For cost/price – Utility usage
Utility Patent
1998-02-17
2001-01-02
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2761)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
For cost/price
Utility usage
C705S007380, C705S030000, C705S400000
Utility Patent
active
06169979
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates to a computer-based system for generating a customized proposal relating to consumption and cost of utilities.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Utility companies face many challenging demands as power, fuel, and other utility product or service consumption increases. The utility companies must monitor consumption of the products and services to ensure that sufficient capacity for power output and/or that sufficient amounts of fuel or other products are available in order to best use existing capacity. If power or other product or service consumption in a particular city or region serviced by a utility company exceeds the utility company's capacity to deliver the product or service, then the company may only have very expensive options available for meeting the demand. The company can build another power, fuel or other plant, or could buy power from another utility. Due to the expense of these options, the utility company would prefer to encourage customers to limit consumption of its products and services.
Utility companies therefore often make sales type presentations to customers to encourage reduction and control of consumption. The company may encourage this by showing how reduction in consumption may significantly reduce cost to the customer. The company may also offer rebates to further encourage power consumption. In addition, the company may propose strategies and techniques for the customer to reduce consumption. For example, more energy efficient lighting for a businesses may be recommended.
In making such sales presentations, utility companies have had limited tools. Sometimes pre-printed brochures are available. However, these are not customer specific and therefore do not address the specific needs of particular customers. Also, the salespersons may each use their own formulas for calculating numbers related to power or other consumption and cost, which means that the company has no standardized formulas or methods of calculation related to utilities. In addition, the salespersons must typically calculate the formulas by hand, which limits their ability to provide information to the customers quickly and efficiently.
Therefore, a need exists for a system that assists utility companies in generating customized proposals related to consumption and cost of products and services provided by utilities.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention comprises a computer-assisted sales system for utilities. A utility company can use the system in order to generate a customized proposal related to how the customer can reduce consumption and cost of utilities. The system receives and stores information related to a utility company's services and conservation programs, utility rates, and a customer's inventory and general identification. The system processes this information in order to determine how various factors and parameters will affect the customer's utility consumption and cost of products and services provided by utilities. As a result of this processing, the system generates a customized report or proposal for the customer.
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Clear With Computers, Inc.
Cosimano Edward R.
Merchant & Gould P.C.
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