Automatic power metering - existing products and new functions

Generally, when power companies make a change to remote metering, they send the techs out with new meters, already fitted with the necessary equipment. The electromechanical meter movements are so cheap (when purchased in quantities) that it doesn't pay to have a tech fit new equipment to them in the field. They just get scrapped.

Meters generally aren't that easy to open up and modify. Due to tampering concerns, the interface hardware is contained entirely within the meter's sealed glass envelope.

Probably not worth it. The cost to make meters upgradable in the field is prohibitive. There would also be tampering issues. Imagine someone coming up with an uploadable hack to cut recorded power consumption.

Of course, these economics don't hold true for large commercial or industrial customers, where revenue can be substantial. In these cases, metering systems are custom designed (by the utility), assembled from components (which can be upgraded and/or replaced) and are subject to periodic testing and maintenance.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Entropy: When your shoelace comes untied, you can\'t fix it
         by walking backwards.

Would this be something added to each home or are you looking at collecting data from a group of homes and forwarding it?

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Dan Hollands

1120 S Creek Dr Webster NY 14580 585-872-2606 snipped-for-privacy@USSailing.net

This would be added to each home. Today the meter readings are collected manually. The new equipment I'm talking about is not just for the sole purpose of invoicing power consumption, but also adding functionality such as remote control, burglar alarms, telephony, high speed internet etc. Imagine inside a private home there's a burglar alarm already installed by another company (with known function). The power company has the communications infrastructure that makes it possible to interact with the burglar alarm from a remote location, if only there was an easy way of connecting the two together. This is just one example, and not a particularly good one, but I think you can appreciate why I don't want to reveal too much of my plans to the public. The thing I am interested in is the interface, and if there already is something out there that I can use, it would save a lot of development costs - and time.

If you are considering designing your own interface, here's some ideas base on a simple laser pointer shining on a conventional watthour meter disk:

Watt Watcher

Electric meter reader

UK Electricity usage monitor

Here's another concept that will keep over-unity optimists happy:

"The Energy Conservation Circuit is a patented circuit that provides economic savings when applied to existing electrical circuitry supplied by alternating current. The device allows the magnetic field to be altered in such a way which significantly reduces the power consumption necessary to operate a given load, whereby the more the load the greater the savings."

"Savings up to 22% have been measured at peak operating times."

Mike Monett

My KWh meter here in Italy was changed to an electronic version last year and is read out via the mains supply line, where are you living?

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ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

I miss the old ones. The new ones have an easy-to-read kWhr scale, but they lack the old rotating disk, which allowed you to determine the instantaneous current, the kW-hr consumption rate.

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 Thanks,
    - Win

My neighbor has a new demand-reading meter. It's not online, but it does have the opticom readout port. It has a rotating disk and a bunch of electronics.

John

Disk meters are astonishing. It's difficult to design an electronic meter that will match their performance, and even more difficult to match their cost.

John

We've just had our meter changed by the electricity co. Rotating disk types in both cases. The 'new' one was older than the old one. The man said that they were so reliable that our meter would go back for calibration and then be cycled back into service with someone else.

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Tony Williams.

There's a similar problem with electronic thermometers versus mercury_in_glass for specialised applications. ie, body temperature, photographic processing, etc.

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Tony Williams.