So, anyone have an idea on how much power an analog or digital meter might use? I can’t seem to find facts and figures anywhere for this kind of thing, but perhaps my research-fu isn’t working right. I assume it’s a rather small amount, akin to a pocket calculator or a wristwatch or something.
And yes, I do know that there are different makes and models of these things.
A follow-up question would be, do these meters measure their own usage, and is that usage being reflected in my bill? Or does that get covered in “usage fees” and the like?
In both cases, the power for the electric meter comes from the utility side of the service. You aren’t getting billed for power lost in the meter.
In the old fashioned spinning disk kind of meter, you have two coils, one connected so that the current through it is proportional to the voltage on the line, and the other connected so that the current through it is proportional to the current going through the line. The coils are placed in such a way that they make the disk spin proportionally to the voltage multiplied by the current, which is more accurate than the really old meters that only measured the current and assumed that the voltage was constant. Since the meter’s disk spins at a rate proportional to the power going into your line, you aren’t being charged for any losses in the meter.
The newer fancy digital meters still have two coils, but instead of going to a mechanical disk mechanism (and all of its resulting gears and such that spin the various dials) the signals are instead fed into an A/D converter and are processed by a microprocessor. All of this circuitry is powered from the utility side of things. None of the current used to power the meter goes through your line and therefore is not measured by the current coil.
Both types of meters use very little power. The power that they do use, along with the cost of the generators, transmission lines, transformers, distribution lines, electricians, engineers, etc. are all factored in to your overall electrical rate and other costs. So, in a way, you do pay for it, but the meter’s power consumption isn’t part of the total kilowatt-hours used that shows up on your bill.
Thank you for that insight! I’m still mostly interested in a rough estimate on the power consumed by such a device- would it be lower than, say, a digital calculator?
More than a calculator. The old kind probably used as much power as a little electric clock.
Modern digital ones have a computer inside, probably uses less than a watt total. (There’s no fan, hard drive, or monitor)
I’m just going to guess that manufacturers brag about efficiency, to the companies that buy the meters.
A friendly phone call might get some detailed info, which you then could post back to enlighten the masses.
Knowing what’s inside of them, I was going to guess roughly half a watt or so for a typical digital meter. Then I looked up the specs for a particular meter made by GE and it came up as 0.5 watts, so it seems my guess was pretty good.
Most calculators are lower power than that these days.
It’s roughly the same amount of power that a cell phone charger will draw when it’s plugged in but not charging a phone. While actually charging your phone though, the charger will draw 10 to 20 times that amount.
Other things to compare it to, it’s roughly the same amount of power that your DVD player will use when it’s turned off, and roughly a fourth of the power used by a typical LED alarm clock.