US Patent 8738546 Self-organizing energy pricing

Techniques for real-time pricing of electrical energy are provided. The techniques include receiving electrical energy data, wherein the electrical energy data comprises one or more energy pricing parameters specified by an energy supplier, measuring power grid frequency, wherein the power grid comprises the current frequency of the power grid, measuring current energy consumption, wherein current energy consumption comprises total energy consumption in a sampling period, retrieving consumption history, wherein consumption history comprises energy consumed by a customer over a time period, computing a unit energy rate as a function of customer type, the one or more pricing parameters, frequency and past history of consumption, and using the computed rate to compute a total charge as a product of the unit energy rate and the total energy consumption.