Method of tracking and reporting energy performance for businesses

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10719797-B2
Application number	US-201414253258-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 15, 2014
Priority date	May 10, 2013
Publication date	Jul 21, 2020
Grant date	Jul 21, 2020

Abstract

Methods and computer systems report and track resource performance for business customers. The computer system receives usage data about a resource associated with a customer of a utility, including hourly usage information about the resource metered at a business premises of the customer. The computer system receives operational data associated with the business premises, including hours of operations information describing when the business premises is open to patrons. The computer system determines resource performance data for the business premises using the received usage data and the received operational data, including information about: (i) resource usage at the business premises during the hours when open to patrons, and (ii) resource usage at the business premises during the hours when closed to patrons. The computer system causes a reporting of this information to the customer of the resource.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method of tracking resource performance for business customers, the computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by a processor, transmissions of usage data over a communications network of an advanced meter infrastructure system, wherein the transmissions are received through metering feeds from advanced meter infrastructure meters;
retrieving, by the processor over a network from electronic publications using computing interfaces for communicating over the network, characteristic data describing a first business premises, wherein the characteristic data comprises at least (i) a first specialty classification that corresponds to a first North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code and (ii) a second specialty classification that corresponds to a second NAICS code, wherein the first specialty classification is different than the second specialty classification and the first NAICS code is different than the second NAICS code;
generating, by the processor, a similarity index comprising a set of coefficients used to augment criteria used to determine similarity between business premises, wherein a coefficient comprises a weight value to apply to a characteristic of a corresponding criterion;
selecting, by the processor, a set of second business premises by applying the similarity index to characteristics of a plurality of second business premises and the first specialty classification corresponding to the first NAICS code of the first business premises, wherein weight values of coefficients for the criteria are applied to corresponding characteristics of a second business premises to determine similarity of the second business premises in relation to the first business premises, wherein the second business premises is selected for inclusion within the set of second business premises;
in response to determining that a number of business premises in the set of second business premises is less than a threshold, (i) adjusting a parameter on a user interface to change an amount of similar business premises and in response thereto selecting, by the processor, one or more additional business premises associated with the second specialty classification corresponding to the second NAICS code of the first business premises and (ii) augmenting, by the processor, the set of second business premises with the one or more additional business premises;
generating, by the processor, a report that comprises usage data describing usage of a resource by the first business premises and usage data describing usage of the resource by the set of second business premises; and
sending, by at least the processor, the report to a remote device associated with the first business premises to cause the first business premises to perform energy reduction actions to reduce consumption of the resource by the first business premises.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein resource performance data is determined from the usage data, and wherein the resource performance data comprises a comparison of the resource usage at the first business premises between times of day when the first business premises is open to patrons and the times of day when the first business premises is closed to patrons.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the generating the report further comprises:
generating the report to comprise the resource performance data.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the processor over the communications network from an advanced meter infrastructure meter associated with the first business premises, the usage data describing usage of the resource by the first business premises.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , further comprising:
retrieving operational data describing operation of the first business premises, and comprising information describing times of day when the business premises is open to patrons.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:
determining resource performance data for the first business premises for different times of day using the received usage data and the received operational data.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein retrieving the operational data further comprises determining the operational data as describing times of day of operations when the business premises is open to patrons based on the received usage data.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving resource performance data for similar business premises; and
including the resource performance data within the report.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:
receiving pricing data for the resource, comprising: information about a first price of the resource, a first set of times of day associated with the first resource price, a second price of the resource that is higher than the first price, and a second set of times of day associated with the second resource price;
determining an elevated pricing time based on the pricing data and the operational data, the elevated pricing time being a time of day when the first business premises is open to patrons overlaps with the times of day associated with the second resource price;
estimating savings that may be realized if a predefined portion of the usage of the resource during the elevated pricing time were moved to a time of day when the first business premises is closed to patrons; and
including the estimated savings within the report.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the usage data comprises at least one of electricity usage data, gas usage data, oil usage data, wood usage data, waste removal usage data, water usage data, sewer usage data, garbage removal usage data, recycling removal usage data, telephone usage data and broadband usage data.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the usage data comprises information about usage of the resource for a plurality of contiguous periods of time.

12. A computerized method for reporting resource usage by a customer of a utility that provides the resource to the customer, the method comprising:
receiving, by a processor, transmissions of usage data over a communications network of an advanced meter infrastructure system, wherein the transmissions are received through metering feeds from advanced meter infrastructure meters;
retrieving, by the processor over a network from electronic publications using computing interfaces for communicating over the network, characteristic data describing a first business premises, wherein the characteristic data comprises at least (i) a first specialty classification that corresponds to a first Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code and (ii) a second specialty classification that corresponds to a second SIC code;
generating, by the processor, a similarity index comprising a set of coefficients used to augment criteria used to determine similarity between business premises, wherein a coefficient comprises a weight value to apply to a characteristic of a corresponding criterion;
selecting, by the processor, a set of second business premises by applying the similarity index to characteristics of a plurality of second business premises and the first specialty classification corresponding to the first SIC code of the first business premises, wherein weight values of coefficients for the criteria are applied to corresponding characteristics of a second business premises to determine similarity of the second business premises in relation to the first business premises, wherein the

Assignees

• Opower Inc

Inventors

• Foster Benjamin David

Classifications

• Y02P90/82

  Energy audits or management systems therefor · CPC title

• Y02P90/84

  Greenhouse gas [GHG] management systems · CPC title

• G06Q50/06

  Energy or water supply · CPC title

• G06Q10/06395 Primary

  Quality analysis or management · CPC title