GB2508283A

GB2508283A - Graphic and Alphanumeric Display for Utility Monitor

Info

Publication number: GB2508283A
Application number: GB1317569.0A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Kenneth Hugh Mccorkindale; Harry William Bach
Original assignee: Tayeco Ltd
Current assignee: Tayeco Ltd
Priority date: 2012-10-07
Filing date: 2013-10-04
Publication date: 2014-05-28
Also published as: GB201217929D0; GB201317569D0

Abstract

A method of monitoring resources, e.g. for electricity, water and gas, comprises monitoring usage of the resource and comparing this to expected or optimal resource usage to provide a consumption indicator for display 26. A block 30 of a display has fifteen bar sections having an LED. The lower bars have a green light, middle bars have an orange light and top bars have a red light to provide a traffic light warning system. A bar is lit and expanded in size to clearly indicate currant resource usage compared to expected consumption and alphanumeric characters display further information. The monitoring may be continuous or split into a series of consecutive time periods. The expected resource usage may be pre-programmed, input by the user or calculated by the system. The user interface may comprise numerical outputs and light sources to draw the users attention. The display may be continuously updated or updated at set time intervals. Thus relative and actual output are displayed together.

Description

RESOURCE MONITORING SYSTEM

The present invention relates to a resource monitoring system, in particular, the invention relates to a resource monitoring system for determining consumption of resources such as utilities.

Excessive consumption of natural resources is an increasing problem. Such consumption depletes natural resources and in turn, this can cause environmental problems as well as causing an increase in the cost of these resources, such as oil and gas. In turn, thcsc rising costs can put significant strain on thc budgets of users of the resources.

Awareness raising campaigns to try and encourage more careful use of natural resources on a personal basis has made knowledge of the issues mainstream.

However, awareness raising has not been successflil in seeing the changes in behaviour required to see significant conservation of resources through decreased utility use.

When managing use of these resources, for example the use of electricity within a school building or office building or even within a home, the abstract measure of utility consumption based simply on the use of appliances means that it is difficult for individuals to correlate particular actions to a reduced use of power or water for example. This is compounded by the utilities companies sending out monthly or quarterly bills, which means that any specific action is lost within the context of utility consumption over a period of 30 days or more.

To overcome this disconnect between the actions which use the utilities and the overall resource consumption, a variety of different utility monitoring systems have been developed. These utility monitoring systems monitor the consumption of utilities such as gas, electricity, LPG, oil and water, and provide an easy to interpret display which enables users to assess the current level of usage and compare this to an optimum or a maximum desired level of usage. By having the connection between actual usage and optimal usage clearly visible and easy to interpret, users can, in real time, modify their behaviour and see the results in terms ofutility consumption.

Such a utility monitoring system is disclosed in W02008/025939 wherein the energy monitoring systcm dctcrmines thrcshold and maximum consumption valucs then monitors ongoing resource usage, providing a display output which a user can easily interpret to understand how current resource consumption compares to the average, the threshold and maximum consumption values.

However, utility monitoring systems such as that detailed above, work on the basis that relevant usage limits are developed over time based on average consumption. In most environments, usage yaries over the course of any giyen period of time, for examplc during a day there will be periods of utility usage surges and othcr periods when little resource is being used at all therefore the usage limits developed to which consumption is referenced maybe of little relevance.

It is thcreforc an object of thc prcscnt invention to providc a resourcc monitoring system which obviates or mitigates the drawbacks of the abovementioned prior art.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a resource monitoring system for determining resource consumption such as utilities on a relevant actual and comparative basis.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a resource monitoring system comprising: monitoring apparatus operable to monitor the consumption of at least one resource on an ongoing basis and to create a monitor output indicative of the monitored consumption; a processor, operable to rcccive and proccss the monitor output and crcatc a consumption indicator of the monitored coilsumption assessed in relation to a prcdctermincd data critcria; a user interface, operable to receive said consumption indicator and provide a system indicator signal, and a display mechanism operable to receive and act upon the system indicator signal to provide an optimised indicator of system performance criteria.

A resource monitoring system which measures resource consumption on an ongoing basis and generates a consumption profile which in turn is uscd to crcate an indicator signal including data of actual and relative usage which can be displayed in an optimised manner for any given point in time and provides a mechanism by which a user can determine the appropriate level of ongoing resource usage at any given time relative to predetermined criteria and thus manage resource consumption more effectively on an ongoing temporal basis.

The ongoing resource monitoring may be continuous monitoring or an ongoing series of consecutive time periods for monitoring may be implemented. An option to have continuous or sequential time segment monitoring means that the regularity of updating the signal indicator output can either be continuous or sequential predetermined time segments depending on user or predetermined requirements.

The data profile may be recorded as simple linear data of resource consumption or may be recorded on an ongoing basis in subdivided sections corresponding to each time segment.

Preferably, the user interface is operable to display the consumption in an adjustably optimised format. The format may be graphical. A graphical representation of relative status of the data profile and consumption indicator which is variably adjusted to optimise the representation of the siial indicator output actual status which can thus facilitate user interpretation of the relative resource consumption.

The user interface may comprise one or more light sources. Preferably the light sources are operable to provide an indication of the relative resource consumption.

The use of light sources to indicate relative resource consumption can ensure user attention is drawn to the system.

The user interface may comprise numerical indicators operable to output relevant components of the signal indicator output. Provision of a numerical indicator output means specific output indications can be provided to a user to ensure they have an accurate indication of aspects of resource consumption.

The user interface may comprise a physical mechanism operable to be variable in order to present an optimised indication of the most relevant aspects of the signal indicator output. A variable physical mechanism enables a user to have a clear indication of the most important aspects of resource consumption by adjustment of the physical mechanism.

Preferably, the user interface comprises a combination of light source, numerical and physical mechanism output indicators. By combining each type of indicator the user can be provided with a clear, relevant and real time indicator which is variable to ensure the most up to date consumption criteria is clearly provided.

Preferably, the indicator output corresponds to current consumption data relating to resource usage. By having the monitored consumption output indicating the current consumption data at any give time, a real time indicator output of resource consumption can be provided.

The real time optimised indicator may be adjusted iteratively to remain relevant.

Adjustment of the indicator output may be carried out on a continuous basis or on the basis of the consecutive series of time periods wherein time period may be any suitable period of time depending on the environment in which the system is used.

For example, in a production line environment, the time period may be every 30 seconds whereas in a home environment, the time period may be every 5 minutes.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of resource monitoring comprising: monitoring the consumption of at least one resource on an ongoing basis to generate a monitor output; providing the monitor output to a processor; processing the monitor output in conjunction with predefined consumption criteria, generating a consumption indicator from the processed monitor output and predefined consumption criteria; providing said consumption indicator to an interface for processing to generate a systcm indicator signal to optimisc display output to indicate systcm pcrformancc aspects.

Monitoring resources using a method based on an ongoing measure of recorded resource consumption and generating a consumption output which can be assessed according to a predetermined criteria and subsequently generate an optimised usage indicator which is displayed on an ongoing and temporal basis provides an indicator mechanism which directs a user to the key consumption criteria so that the user can dctermine the appropriate levcl of ongoing rcsource usage at any given time and thus manage current resource consumption more effectively.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the following figurcs, by way of exampic only, in which: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a monitoring system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, and Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a user interface in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention.

In Figure 1 there is shown a system, generally indicatcd by rcfcrencc numeral 10, for monitoring the consumption of three resources (not shown), in this case electricity, water and gas which are each provided for use through a conduit (not shown). The system 10 is provided with monitoring transducers 12a, 12b and 12c which are associated with electricity, watcr and gas respectively. Thc output from thc transducers is provided to multiplexer 14 which is associated with processor 16. Data output from proccssor 16 is providcd to transccivcr 18 which can transmit a signal to or receive a signal from receiver 20 which is connected to user interface 24.

The system 10 is arranged to work on an ongoing basis which can be continuously monitoring or can be monitoring in a series of consecutive predetermined time period segments. The duration of each time period segment may be input into the system processor 16 prior during assembly of thc system 10. Altcmatively the duration of each time period segment can be determined by the user and input to the processor 16 via the user interface 24 so as to suit the operational requirements of the user. In addition, expected levels of consumption of the utilities combined can be input into the processor 16 during assembly of the system 10, or can be determined by the user and input into the processor 16 via the user interface 24, or can be determined by an intelligent process embedded within the processor 16 itself.

Each transducer 12a, b, c provides a signal indicative of the flow in the conduit with which it is associated. In this case, the transducers provide signals in the form of a potential diffcrcncc in thc rangc of 0-1OV with a calibration factor selected to correlate to the potential difference range with the full scale range of flow possible in the conduit. However, it will be clearly understood that any suitable potential difference range or any suitable measurement or transducer arrangement may be used with a suitably selected calibration factor if necessary.

The transducer 12a can be arranged for use with the electrical conduit so that it provides a voltage signal corresponding to the current flowing in the conduit. The current can be measured by inserting an inline ammeter or in a non-invasive fashion by attaching a clamp meter or transducer to the conduit.

As transducers I 2b, and I 2c are associated with water and gas respectively, they arc i -flow transducers capable of producing a voltage signal corresponding to thc flow ratc of the gas or water respectively. The transducer may determine the flow rate by one of a number of means, for example by a piston meter or a Venturi meter.

Alternatively, if the conduits are made of a non-conducting material, a magnetic flow meter can be used to determine the rate of flow of water and a mass flow meter could be used to determine the flow rate of the gas.

Voltage signals generated by each of the transducers I 2a, I 2b and I 2c arc input into multiplexer 14 which multiplexes the received signals and passes these to the processor 16 thus providing the processor 16 with information relating to the consumption of each utility.

when the system 10 is operating, the information relating to the consumption of each utility is recorded and is provided to the processor 16 as a consumption indicator where a template of usage criteria resides such that the energy consumption occurring at each point in time is captured.

As the consumption of each utility is collected in real time, the processor 16 creates a consumption indicator based on monitored consumption when compared to the template profile of consumption. The consumption indicator is subsequently provided to user interface 24 via transceiver 18 and transceiver 20. At interface 24 the display 26 displays an output indicative of the consumption indicator which provides an indication of the current level of consumption in comparison to the base line profile for the comparative time within the time period.

Figures 2a and 2b each show a display element 26 of user interface 24. The display 26 presents relative consumption data on a block 30 which corresponds, in this ease to, electricity consumption. The block 30 of display 26 is provided with fifteen bar sections 32, with each bar provided with a light source mechanism (not shown) which may be an LED or the like, wherein the bars 32a -e are each provided with a green light source, bars 32f -j are each provided with an orange light source and bars 32k -o are each provided with a red light source such that the display can employ a traffic light representation of the current usage in relation to the expected or predetermined usage such that the most appropriate bar relative to expected consumption is lit using the related light source whilst the other bars each remain unlit. In this system a green block indicates that resource consumption is very economic in relation to the expected profile consumption at any given time; an orange block indicates that resource consumption is roughly equivalent to the expected profile consumption at any given time and a red block indicates that resource consumption is very uneconomic in relation to the expected profile consumption at any given time.

In addition, detailed display mechanisms 34 which in this case are numerical and text characters are provided in the relevant bar to indicate the level of resource consumption. The detailed display mechanism can be implemented such that specific details relating to actual consumption can be indicated in a clear manner whilst the remaining bars remain without a detailed display mechanism on display. When the relevant bar changes, the detailed display mechanism correspondingly adjusts the bar in which it is operating.

Furthermore, the display is provided with a physical adjustment mechanism 36 such that each bar has a compact dimension setting and an expanded dimensions setting such that the physical adjustment mechanism activates the most appropriate bar to indicate current resource consumption such that it has an expanded dimensions setting whilst all other irrelevant bars are set to the compact dimension setting.

In combination, these display mechanisms are able to operate together to ensure an optimised relative and actual output is provided to a user. Employing such a display system enables a user to easily determine the appropriateness of resource consumption levels.

For example, Figure 2a may represent electricity consumption in a home on Tuesday at 8am. The profile consumption for electncity is 4.5kw, however the house is only using 4kW of electricity, thus the physical adjustment mechanism activates whichever bar has, to that time, been expanded to now contract. Additionally, it implements expansion of bar 32e which activates the bar 32e lighting mechanism to display in green indicating economic consumption whilst the detailed display mechanism activates to provide an output reading of0.22/h. In combination these mechanisms ensure that the user is able to obtain relative and actual consumption data in a simple manner. The expanded block emphasises both the position on the scale i.e. green, orange or red and provides the reading, in text, which guides the user to look at the text and then associate the text with the position on the scale. In this way the colour and text are re-enforced by use of a physical adjustment mechanism which varies the size of the block and text.

In Figure 2b, the same block 30 is shown later that day at 3pm, when the expected consumption provided by the profile is 2.8kw however the house is consuming 3kW and therefore the physical adjustment mechanism activates expansion of bar 32h which has an orange light source and a detailed display mechanism of £0.18/hr will be activated thus displaying consumption is generally in line with expected consumption as well as providing a quantitative representation of the actual consumption. The text chosen here i.e. consumption rate by cost, is a variable on which, in isolation, a user would find it hard to associate with their bill or quantity of resource usage. By locating it on the orange ban the user now associates it with usage being within line for that time of the day.

Thus if a user wished to budget their electrical consumption, the criteria could be set across the day, so that while they could calculate an average consumption rate which would keep them within budget, this would always show red' at times where the usage was above average such as in the morning when water is heated for baths and showers. In the present invention, the consumption rate can be calculated across the profile of usage and these values dropped uniformly to meet the budget. The display 26 would then show green when the usage is below that predicted lbr that time of day, orange when it is around the predicted usage and red when it is well above. The expanded block will include text of the consumption rate which could be calculated as a rate of how much the user is saving or how much more the user is being charged.

This text with emphasis by being located in an expanded block, on a scale colour graded, will re-enforce the message to the user who can then adjust their behaviour to reduce their resource usage.

The principle advantage of the invention is that the monitoring of resource consumption can be determined relatively to a profile usage thus providing a more accurate and relevant indication of resource usage at any given time.

A further advantage of the invention is that relative resource consumption at any given time can be indicated in a simple manner optimised to provide relevant output data thus enabling appropriate measures to be implemented to improve resource consumption.

A yet further advantage of the invention is that it provides a display which engages an end user. It has been fbund that, as well as providing an easy to interpret graphical indication of consumption rate and how it relates to predetermined thresholds, it is even more effective to provide the end user with an actual number representing consumption rate and/or cost of operating at that consumption rate.

It will be appreciated to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made to the invention herein described without departing from the scope thereof For example, although water, gas and electricity have been given as example utilities, any meterable utility may be monitored by the system, including, but not limited to LPG, oil, chemicals, material or the like. One or more resources may be monitored either individually or in a combined display. In addition, while in the system 10 shown the processor 16 provides and receives data to and from user interface 24 via transceivers 20, 22, processor 16 may be connected to user interface 24 by a cabled connection, plug connection or any other suitable connection means. Further more, whilst display 26 has bccn detailed as having a simply block traffic light system of indicators, and suitable display mechanism can be used providing data in graphical, chart or numerical form. In addition, each resource in a resource monitoring network, such as gas, electricity and water, and be provided with an individual block 30 or the display can be provided with a single block to present every resource combined in a single output.

Claims

CLAIMS1 A resource monitoring system comprising: monitoring apparatus operable to monitor the consumption of at least one resource on an ongoing basis and to create a monitor output indicative of the monitored consumption; a processor, operable to receive and process the monitor output and create a consumption indicator of the monitored consumption assessed in relation to a predctcrmincd data critcria; a user interface, operable to receive said consumption indicator and provide a system indicator signal, and a display mechanism operable to receive and act upon the system indicator signal to provide an optimised indicator of system performance criteria.
2. A resource monitoring system according to claim 1 wherein the ongoing resource monitoring is by continuous monitoring.
3. A resource monitoring system according to claim I wherein the ongoing resource monitoring is in an ongoing series of consecutive time periods for monitoring.
4. A resource monitoring system according to claim 2 wherein the consumption is recorded as simple linear data of resource consumption.
5. A resource monitoring system according to claim 3 wherein the consumption is recorded on an ongoing basis in subdivided sections corresponding to each time segment.
6. A resource monitoring system according to any preceding claim wherein the user interface is operable to display the consumption in an adjustably optimised format.
7. A resource monitoring system according to claim 6 wherein the format is graphical.
8. A resource monitoring system according to any preceding claim wherein the user interface comprises one or more light sources.
9. A resource monitoring system according to claim 8 wherein the light sources are operable to provide an indication of the relative resource consumption.
10. A rcsourcc monitoring systcm according to any prcccding claim whcrcin thc uscr intcrfacc comprisc numcrical indicators opcrablc to output rclcvant components of the system indicator signal.
11. A resource monitoring system according to any preceding claim wherein the user interface comprises a physical mechanism operable to be variable in order to present an optimised indication of the most relevant aspects of the system indicator signal.
12. A resource monitoring system according to any one of claims 8 to 11 wherein the user interface comprises a combination of at least two output indicators selected from the group comprising: light source, numerical and physical mechanism output indicators.
13. A resource monitoring system according to claim 12 wherein the output indicators correspond to current consumption data relating to resource usage providing a real time optimised indicator.
14. A resource monitoring system according to claim 13 wherein the real time optimised indicator is adjusted iteratively to remain relevant.
15. A resource monitoring system according to claim 14 wherein adjustment of the real time optimised indicator is carried out on a continuous basis.
16. A resource monitoring system according to claim 14 wherein adjustment of the real time optimised indicator is carried out on the basis of a consecutive series of time periods wherein the time period is any suitable period of time depending on the environment in which the system is used.
17. A method of resource monitoring comprising: monitoring the consumption of at least one resource on an ongoing basis to generate a monitor output; providing the monitor output to a processor; processing the monitor output in conjunction with predefmed consumption criteria; gcncrating a consumption indicator from the processed monitor output and predefmed consumption criteria; providing said consumption indicator to an interface for processing; and generating a system indicator signal to optimise a display output to indicate system performance aspects.