Energy management system with responder unit having an override

Abstract

An energy management system provides energy managing signals over a medium, such as TV cables, power lines, telephone lines or free space radio frequency transmissions, to a plurality of subscriber units. A transponder in each unit responds to the signals and provides corresponding signals onto the power lines within the subscribing unit. Each appliances to be managed has associated therewith a responder unit coupled to the electric grid to receive the transponder signals. The signals are encoded to manifest the energy managing dictates of a particular one of a plurality of different schedules and are only provided in conformance with the dictates of the schedule it manifests. Typically, where an appliance is to be turned off as part of the energy management scheme, the encoded signals are provided only when the schedule manifested thereby indicate that a particular applicance is to be turned off. The responder units each have associated subscriber settable encoding devices and the subscriber sets the code of a particular schedule for each responder after referring to series of schedules which is supplied to each user of the energy management system. The responder then responds to only the codes applied thereto conforming to the code set on the settable encoding devices and the appliance with which that responder is associated is then managed in accordance with the selected schedule. A reset switch is provided to override the response to the energy management signals.