Reference pattern · Energy & utilities

Sense the meter. Reason about load. Act within your limits.

This reference pattern shows how meter and grid context could inform a bounded demand-response proposal. It is not a live self-service energy deployment; dispatch requires a validated connector, site policy, human approval, and independent equipment safeguards.

Soft 3D scene: a robotic arm eases a building's power dial down a notch beside a trimmed demand chart
Meter to gridapproved context in one review
Policy boundschecked before dispatch
Supported dispatchbounded and attributable
What it senses

The meter, the grid, your resources, and the weather.

In this reference pattern, validated connectors could supply selected meters, grid and price signals, approved distributed resources, and weather context. Source quality, freshness, tenant scope, and missing readings would remain visible before the system proposes a response.

How it reasons

When to shift, where a fault is forming, how to answer.

Price, load, and hardware state feed one plan, and the plan shows its work.

When to shift

Review load off the peak

The pattern could compare price and demand when proposing pre-cooling, battery charging, or peak reduction, with assumptions shown for review.

Where a fault forms

Flag possible drift

A managed analysis could surface an unusual sub-meter, an out-of-band circuit, or a resource that stopped reporting for investigation.

How to answer

Review the DR event

For an incoming demand-response event, the pattern could propose a curtailment within validated limits. Site policy and human authority approve or block dispatch.

What it acts on

Curtail, shift, or dispatch only within validated limits.

A managed deployment could curtail an approved load, shift it in time, or dispatch a validated asset. Single-flight and idempotency controls reduce duplicate effects; unclear limits block dispatch.

See the trust spine

The reference architecture separates the capability from its connector, but a vendor swap still requires capability-parity and validation. Supported dispatches should record who proposed them, which limits passed, and what the asset reported; recovery depends on the asset.

Review a bounded demand-response plan.

Request a managed review of the meter, approved assets, human oversight, and independent equipment safeguards.