Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Operations research or analysis
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-18
2002-04-02
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Operations research or analysis
C705S014270, C705S400000, C705S412000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06366889
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a system for analyzing and improving the operational efficiency of major energy consuming systems at large facilities and particularly the consumption of electricity at commercial, governmental, or industrial facilities.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In order to understand the practical benefits of this invention, it is important to point out how large organizations often incur tens of thousands of dollars in additional energy costs, every year, from trivial—undetected—operating errors, equipment problems, hard-to-detect billing errors.
When it comes to managing the energy and water operations at most large facilities, operating personnel are usually granted unconditional and unquestioned authority on how they run their facilities—as long as the facilities' tenants are satisfied. This kind of operation not only results in highly inefficient operations, but in untold millions in additional costs, due to undetected and recurring operational errors and equipment problems. In fact, a 15-minute mistake by a building engineer at a large facility can easily cost $30,000 or more in additional energy charges that go unnoticed.
While it is rare to find an organization which would normally pay bills without understanding their content, that is exactly what organizations often do when paying their energy and water bills. They practically hand the utilities twelve blank checks to fill in every year—and in the process millions of dollars are spent in overpayments and overcharges!
Most facilities management operations are limited in their ability to address the issues raised above because they lack an effective tool that can identify the nature of the problems and their effect on cost. Facility managers and operating engineers are rarely aware of how their operations can drastically impact their utility bills resulting in recurring operating errors and lengthy equipment malfunctions. For example, by not having the necessary resources to differentiate between a $10 energy spike and a $10,000 energy spike, few managers or engineers are inclined to commit the necessary time and resources to investigate what they might consider to be a negligible glitch.
A facility may have the most sophisticated operating equipment available and the most up-to-date and state-of-the-art control system, but such equipment and systems may not be enough. If the equipment is not operated properly, or if the sensors on the control systems fail, the facility is going to run inefficiently and money will be wasted. The bigger the facility, the bigger the waste.
A variety of services and systems have been proposed to assist facilities managers and owners achieve better control over their utility costs. For example, over twenty years ago a software implemented system, now provided under the name FASER 2000 by Omnicomp, Inc. a subsidiary of Enron, was introduced to assist facilities managers to track utility performance and to compare alternative prices. While useful for the purposes intended, this system was quite limited in its ability to help the user identify problems, particularly, difficult to identify problems and to analyze the costs associated with those problems and to identify appropriate solutions. Other software packages are known such as METRIX UTILITY ACCOUNTING SYSTEM provided by SRC Systems Inc, Berkeley, Calif.; UTILITY MANAGER supplied by Illinova Corporation, Decatur, Ill.; and ENERCY PROFILER supplied by Energy Interactive. In varying degrees these packages fail to provide robust, easy-to-use assistance to facilities managers in achieving the highest level of efficiency in the use of energy.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,216,623 to Barrett et al., a system and method is disclosed for monitoring and analyzing energy consuming equipment or loads. Data is collected, analyzed and used to create charts to provide a detailed analysis including reports containing summaries of the sensed data in the form of listings of compressed data as well as graphs such as histograms and graphs correlating different energy characteristics of the energy consuming system. While generally suggestive of important steps necessary to achieving improved efficiency in facilities management, Barrett et al. '623 does not provide a system that will allow for relatively easy analysis of complex energy consumption data with techniques for identifying probable reasons for inefficient operations and with guidance on possible solutions to those inefficient operations.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,084 to Cmar is a far more sophisticated approach to managing energy consumption in a facility using complex computer aided analysis. In particular, Cmar '084 discloses a process including the step of identifying patterns of electric energy consumption and demand in a facility and determining possible changes in the facility for energy conservation using monthly electric billing data over the years. The system uses daily weather reports to permit data to be collated and analyzed to create a model of the load shape according to what has happened in the facility. Through use of the system, reports are created that allow a facility operator to visualize end-uses of electricity and to select various energy conservation measures which can be predicted as usefully applicable to the building. By producing a report using the generated model of the load shape, the system allows management to make a decision based on predicted savings. The value of energy savings is calculated by normalizing the before retrofit billing data to current billing data and weather conditions and subtracting after retrofit billing data to identify the differential. While useful for its intended purposes, the system and method disclosed by Cmar '084 involves a complex series of steps for “disaggregating” utility data followed by creation of a “best fit” curve using regression analysis to create a “load” curve model for the building. This approach is cumbersome and difficult to implement and is subject to errors in the creation of the model that might only be discovered after expensive retrofit of equipment or change in the facility's use is undertaken to check the accuracy of the model as is contemplated by the Cmar '084 teaching.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method which is capable of producing highly accurate information for use of facilities managers in achieving more efficient facilities operation and cost containment. In particular, there exists a need for a method and system that produces highly accurate, detailed information that does not rely on complex mathematical modeling and yet provides on going guidance to facilities managers that will assist such managers in achieving and maintaining highly efficient, low cost energy consumption by the facilities for which they are responsible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The primary object of the subject invention is to provide a system and method for overcoming the deficiencies of the prior art and in particular to provide a system and method for producing highly accurate information for use by facilities managers in achieving more efficient facilities operation and energy cost containment.
Another object of the subject invention is to provide a computer implemented method for visually analyzing current and historic patterns of energy consumption in a facility to which energy is supplied by one or more utilities which bill for the energy supplied over consecutive billing periods at rates which may vary during some billing periods to determine the presence of possible operating errors, equipment problems, or hard-to-detect billing errors.
Still another object of the subject invention is to provide a computer implemented method including processing the stored data, in a computer, to create single period graphs which illustrate and tabulate energy consumption for each billing period (e.g. monthly) and to create multi-period graphs (e.g. yearly) which illustrate and tabulate energy consumption during multiple extended periods formed of consecutive billing periods to all
Cosimano Edward R.
Leedom Jr. Charles M.
Nixon & Peabody LLP
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