APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR CONTROLLING HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICAL APPLIANCE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To control household electrical appliances according to changing power rates without impairing the convenience of the household electrical appliances. SOLUTION: A controller 100 controls one or more household electrical appliances connected to an internal network 40. The controller 100 includes: a first communication unit 110 which communicates with a management server 10 connected to an external network 20; a second communication unit 140 which communicates with the household electrical appliances; a control unit 120 which acquires an electric charge table from the management server 10 via the first communication unit 110, the electric charge table associating the time zones and electric charges associated with each other and being updated at a predetermined timing, and determines a power-save time zone for reducing power consumed by the household electrical appliances based on the acquired electric charge table; and a command generating unit 130 which generates a control command for controlling the operations of the household electrical appliances for reducing the power consumption in the power-save time zone, and transmits the generated command to the household electrical appliances via the second communication unit 140. COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT