ELECTRONIC ENERGY METER

The energy meter is an electrical measuring device, which is used to record Electrical Energy Consumed over a specified period of time in terms of units.

Every house, small factory, business establishment, shops, offices etc. need at least one energy meter to register power consumption. The supplier of electrical raises the bill on the basis reading shown by this meter. The producer of electricity sale the electricity to the electricity boards and boards have to sale this energy to the consumer. Consumer needs to pay the amount against the bill raised by the supplier. The data generate by the energy meter is the base to raise the bill by power supplier. Because of massive rural and urban electrification programme of Government, there is a good demand for this product. This product is available in single phase and three phases at different current rating as per customer’s requirement. Though, newly developed electronic energy meter is also available in the market but in view of simple technology involved to manufacture this product and for replacement of spare parts, the present demand and future prospect of this product is reasonably good.

An Electronic Energy Meter (EEM) functionally outperforms the traditional Ferrari’s wheel meter. One important advantage of EEM is that in non linear loads, its metering is highly accurate and electronic measurement is more robust than that of the conventional mechanical meters. The Power companies benefits from EEM in three significant ways.

1. It reduces the cost of theft and corruption on electricity distribution network with electronic designs and prepayment interfaces.

2. Electronic energy meter measures current in both Phase and Neutral lines and calculate power consumption based on the larger of the two currents.

3. EEM improves the cost and quality of electricity distribution.

Types of Energy Meters with respect to Technology

Electro-Mechanical Energy Meters

These energy meters are obsolete now but some countries are still using it due to its cheapness and robustness. They are also called as Disk meter because a disk is present inside the Energy Meter which rotates when current flows through it. This rotation is captured by the dial and enhance its readings as per the amount of current flown. The dial of the Disk Meter shows only kWh usage since the time of Energy Meter installation.

They came in both 3 phase and single phase types. Current rating for 3 Phase Disk Type Energy Meter is normally up to 100 Amps. A simple 3 phase disk type energy meter is present in the diagram below:

Digital Energy Meters

Digital Energy Meters are the 2nd generation of Energy Meters. These meters digitally measure the energy and other factors like voltage, current, instantaneous Power and show them on a LCD. They can store energy consumption data up to 2 years’ in EEPROM.

Digital Energy Meters came in single phase and 3 phase both types. Single phase type digital energy meters normally just display and store MDI and Energy units and that’s all.

On the other hand, digital 3 phase energy meters give tariff based energy units storing as well. As the rate of the unit is more at Peak Load times than at off peak load times. So, Energy meters must store energy units in two slots i.e. peak slot (T1) and off peak slot (T2) to differentiate the timing of electricity usage. This is the reason that they are also called as TOD (Time of Day) Energy meters.