PENDING
Please predict whether this patent is acceptable.PATENT ABSTRACT: The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for predicting the temporal course of a power requirement in a housing development comprising one or a plurality of housing units each comprising a plurality of power consumers, the housing development having a common power supply that is subject to a temporally variable tariff. The method is designed such that a prediction of the power consumption (404) of the housing development (201) for a future time period having a specified duration T is made and continuously updated, it being possible for a load transfer for reducing the power costs to be determined on the basis of a current prediction of the power consumption (404), each prediction of the power consumption (404) using data of detected load profiles (402) of the housing development (202) that are formed by detecting the temporal course of the overall power consumption of the housing development in the time period having the specified duration T, a current prediction (404) for the future time period having the specified duration T being calculated on the basis of a previous prediction (401) and data of a previously detected load profile (402), and the predictions and the detected load profiles being assigned, as a set of characteristic variables (406), one or more characteristic variables (305, 306, 307), the predictions of which are at least approximately known and which have an influence on the load profiles, and a current prediction (404) for the future time period having the specified duration T being calculated on the basis of a previous prediction (401) having the same set of characteristic variables (406) and on the basis of a previously detected load profile (402) having the same set of characteristic variables (406).