Know Your Meter

Know your meter

The electricity meter is an electronic, solid state device which accurately measures various electrical parameters, in addition to energy consumed & demand of the consumer(s). The electricity meter is designed around an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) based micro-controller with suitably developed programming language/firmware. The static meters adhere to better class of accuracy & offers high degree of programmability to accommodate various types of applications & tariffs.

The metering equipment provides a total solution to energy metering. It is not at all a dumb device (or combination of devices), but an all-encompassing system that generally covers all aspects related to metering & billing. The system facilitates analysis of power/energy & revenue.

The meters are continually evaluated for conformance w.r.t. technical specification(s) & other applicable Standard(s)/Regulation(s). Quality of meters is ensured through various checks, inspections & feedback at various stages of life-cycle of the meters.

Basic Measurement Principle

An analogue to digital converter is used to sample voltage and current relative to incoming waveform. High sampling rate gives better accuracy & reliability. The meter has power supply unit, metering engine, processing and communication engine and other add-on modules such as a real time clock (RTC), a liquid crystal display, communication ports and so on. The meter stores the measured data within non-volatile memory.

Meters are read in the following manner:

All the static meters are having display window/panel and are having different display sequence & legends for different parameters, energies & demand. These parameters can be seen from display panel using push button. Normal static meters can also be read with the help of Meter Reading Instrument (MRI) for retrieving stored data & information within the meter memory.

The meters installed at bulk LT & HT consumers are capable of remote communication to the Meter Data Acquisition System (MDAS) through external modem.

Smart meters, where installed, are having in-built Network Interface Card (NIC) for remote two-way communication to the back-end Head End System (HES) via suitable communication network.