Electric Utility Meter Read

The utility company charges you for the power you use based on the monthly readings of an electric meter that measures the current passing through the service entrance into your electrical service panel the meter can either be a mechanical analog meter that is read monthly by a utility service person who visits your home or a newer digital meter that may send information via internet or radio.

Electric utility meter read.

A gas meter is driven by the force of the moving gas in the pipe and also turns faster as the flow increases. This technology mainly saves utility providers the expense of periodic trips to each physical location to read a meter. Electricity is always in kwh. This is called a production meter or a generation meter and is shown on the left in this photo.

People should ask for an actual read of the meter from the board of public utilities which they can do and also try to get a breakdown from the utility of when the read was brand said. To measure the amount of electricity or gas that you use the utility installs a meter between the incoming electric power or gas lines and the point of distribution at the house. This is your usage meter shown on the right in this photo. Automatic meter reading amr is the technology of automatically collecting consumption diagnostic and status data from water meter or energy metering devices gas electric and transferring that data to a central database for billing troubleshooting and analyzing.

Digital electric meters have numeric displays that show numbers in kilowatt hours. Gas meters look similar to electricity meters and can be read in the same way. The electric companies take readings on these electric meters typically monthly and charge the electricity user for the amount of power consumed for the month. Department of energy estimates that nearly 70 million american homes are already using a smart meter and electric utility companies have enthusiastically replaced analog meters which are read manually each month whenever possible.

You can identify the types of meter by the units. Your original utility meter continues to tell you how much electricity you are taking from the utility. A new second meter measures how much solar electricity you send to the utility. Unlike traditional analog electric meters many digital meters transmit your meter reading wirelessly to the electric company via radio frequencies.

Thus a digital electric meter is much simpler to read than a traditional meter because it has fewer readings to decipher. If you have a 100 watt light bulb that is turned on for one hour. A kilowatt is equal to 1 000 watts.