If so, how many cents does it add up to a year (on average)?
(yeah… This was a brain fart that came to me while I was mowing the lawn…)
This site; Watt-hour meters has fundamentals.
It looks to me like you don’t directly pay for the power that is required to run the meter. A watt-hour meter is an electric motor that has an armature current equal to the load current you are taking and a field voltage equal to the voltage into your load. The motor rotor (armature) drives a disc that runs through a magnetic field thus generating eddy currents in the disc. This results in a retarding force on the disc which determines the rate at which the motor turns. The number of turns is calibrated in so many watt-hours, or fractions, per turn and that is indicated on the dials.
In the diagrams in the site, the voltage for the meter field is taken off on the power companies side of the meter so the current through that field coil does not count as part of your current demand.
However, one way or another the customer has to pay all of the power companies expenses plus a profit. So if you don’t pay directly, you do pay by paying your share of the company’s overhead costs, like the cost of running their meters.
k.