Patent 7871014 was granted and assigned to LG on January, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A system for controlling multiple air conditioners. The system includes a demand control unit configured to calculate an estimated power amount used by the multiple air conditioners based on an amount of power consumed by the multiple air conditioners during a predetermined time period, and to forcibly control an operation of one or more air conditioners based on a size of the estimated power amount. Further, the demand control unit is connected to the multiple air conditioners and communicates with the multiple air conditioners using a serial data communication protocol.