A system for monitoring power electronic energy meter quality events of Multifunction Energy Meter storing reference information reflective of different service types to the reference information for the service type to determine the occurrence of power quality events. For each power quality event, at least one of a start time, a stop time, a duration, a measured phase, a magnitude of a measured quantity, and a predisturbance value, and a cumulative total of the power quality events is recorded.The meter includes firmware which measures the characteristics of electrical energy supplied to the meter and which generates characteristic signals reflective of the measured characteristics of the electrical energy.
A processor is connected to receive and process the characteristic signals. The processing of the characteristic signals includes selecting and manipulating certain of the characteristic signals and generating characteristic information in response to the selection and generating additional characteristic information in response to the manipulation. It is preferred for the meter to include a memory having reference information stored therein. In such an embodiment, the manipulation of characteristic signals includes retrieving certain of the reference information and generating the characteristic information in response to the selected signals and the reference information.
Some utilities configure the meters themselves to ensure better control over which meters are installed at which installation sites. However, such configuration activity adds to the installation cost and does not always reduce the risk that a meter configured for one service might inadvertently be installed at a site supplied by a different service. Therefore, there remains a need for an electronic meter which automatically detects the service type and voltage to which the meter is installed and which either automatically configures its own programming to the detected service or provides a simple means for manual configuration at the installation site.The aforementioned registers and mechanical time mechanisms have only a few different measuring capabilities and are often limited as to the different time intervals which may be provided and such intervals aregenerally not variable as between weekdays and weekend days.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,061 for a Digital Processing And Calculating AC Electric Energy Metering System, issued Feb. 28, 1978, and assigned to the assignee of this invention a programmableelectronic calculating circuit is disclosed for providing large flexibility in measuring several different parameters of an electric energy quantity.Programmable Multifunction Energy Meter are rapidly replacing that due to the enhanced functionality achieved using programmable logic integrated into solid-state electronic meters. Some of these meters can be used to meter various different electrical services without hardware modification.
