Disclosed herein is a centralized power reducing device, particularly for lighting installations, comprising, on each phase of the installation power source, a winding (16) in series with load (10), wound on a magnetic core (18), the current supplied to load (10) flowing therethrough, a second winding (20) wound on said magnetic core (18), a drive or control current flowing therethrough, means (22, 24) for changing said drive or control current and wherein said means (22,24) for establishing the extent of the drive or control current in said second winding (20) are comprised of a multiple-tap autotransformer (22), the connection of said autotransformer (22) taps occurring by means of relays (24) controlled by a logic unit (26).

A microcomputer repetitively samples a signal representative of the instantaneous state of an electrical contact and initiates a count in response to the first sample which indicates a contact state different from a stored status of the contact. The microprocessor counts up for samples indicating an active state of the contact and down for inactive samples. If the count increases to a predetermined count representing a certain net count of active samples when the stored status is inactive, the stored status is changed to active. Similarly, the stored status is changed from active to inactive if the count decreases to a predetermined count representing a certain net count of inactive samples. The time of the first sample which indicates a contact state different from the stored status of the contact is stored as a temporary time. If the stored contact status is changed, the stored temporary time is saved as the valid time of the change in status. The microcomputer maintains lists of contacts having an active status and those having an inactive status and keeps track of a separate sample count for each contact monitored.

A programmable timed electrical power management device protects and controls electrical equipment and peripherals which are plugged into it. The front of the housing containing the electrical circuitry is provided with a LCD display, a series of pressure sensitive switches for inputting function and control commands to control the operation of the device. A series of LED's mounted on the front of the housing indicate the operational status of the device. The back of the housing is provided with an AC power input receptacle, an on/off reset switch, a series of AC outlets which are divided into pairs of filtered banks, and two or more modular jacks for receiving the modular plug of a telephone, fax, and/or modem. The device circuitry includes a CPU, timer/calendar, a sound generator, voltage sensors, and a back-up battery power supply. The outlets and modular plugs are protected from electrical surges. Each bank of outlets can be selectively programmed to turn on and off at a different time of the day and different days of the week. When more than one bank is set to start at the same time, power is sequentially supplied to each electrical outlet bank allowing the voltage to stabilize before turning on the next bank. A warning tone will sound fifteen, ten, and five minutes prior to shutting off any of the banks, to alert the user that the system is approaching the preset time for the power to the outlets to be turned off, to prevent accidental loss of information.

An automation and energy management system includes an automation panel box which may be positioned adjacent to a circuit breaker panel box. The automation panel box includes one or more circuit breaker control modules, one or more device control modules and a power module for providing power to the control modules. The circuit breaker control module provides signals to operate motorized circuit breakers, so as to turn on or off the power to a device being managed and the device control module provides signals to control individual appliances. Each of the two control modules is capable of controlling up to eight different circuit breakers or eight different individual devices and each includes a manual override button for each breaker or device controlled, which override button can be manually pressed by a person desiring to override the automation and energy management control. Each control module includes a counting circuit which sequentially enables one of several toggle circuits that sustains the state of each circuit breaker (or appliance switch). A facility computer generally communicates with the modules over a bus and issues commands to cause certain automatic functions of energy management to occur.

A reconfigurable communications module for a Tap Changer or Voltage Regulator. Briefly stated, a communication module is rack insertable into a voltage regulator controller and has disposed therein a microprocessor board for communicating with the host power distribution control apparatus and which also communicates with a transceiver board for communication with external equipment. The microprocessor board may be directed to receive/transmit one of a plurality of stored link layer protocol schemes without resorting to replacing the communication module.