A typical meter will convert electronic energy meter signals proportional to instantaneous voltage and current to digital, then compute average and instantaneous real power, reactive power, active energy, etc., and transmit the information serially.Customer service is improved through remote and automated meter reading and efficient data management. Besides receiving more credible utility bills, consumers benefit from more reliable power distribution. When customer meters are communicating through a network, power outages can be detected, identified, and corrected more quickly.If the required ratio of peak power to average power in a system is reduced, the consequent reduction in required generating capacity will reduce environmental disturbance and pollution.

The incentives provided by multiple-rate billing will help to greatly reduce peak usage despite population growth. Distribution cleanliness is maintained by monitoring the power-quality pollution (e.g., excessive reactive power, nonlinear loads, dc offsets) imposed by individual consumers. Consumers can benefit from lower electricity bills with the installation of smart card controlled energy meters that lower operational costs of providing service, reading meters, and processing data.Electronic meters can compute power accurately irrespective of phase shifts and waveform distortion due to nonlinear loads; also, electromechanical meters are not able to accurately measure energy in the presence of phase-fixed load regulation schemes popular on distribution networks. Electronic measurements are thus more robust and accurate under these conditions.Granted that electronic energy meters have outperformed the electromechanical meter in terms of functionality and performance, how do they stack up in cost and reliability? Two thumbs up!

The entry to this field of companies like Analog Devices, with its excellent reputation for supplying analog, digital, and mixed-signal integrated circuits in large quantity for military, aerospace, and high-volume consumer products, promises the successful marriage between high reliability and low cost electronics that the industry has been waiting for. Recognizing the cost constraints of single-phase energy meters, ADI has identified an opportunity to help meter manufacturers meet their volume requirements, while reaching their cost targets and alleviating their reliability concerns.Such futuristic possibilities as automatic meter reading, smart card prepayment, and multiple rate billing will contribute importantly, but the actual accurate and reliable measurement of energy, both real and reactive, is the primary concern of progressive energy suppliers and distributors.

Electronic measurement leads to reduced manufacturing investment, improved measurement accuracy and quality, and increased timely information, a combination of benefits that go well beyond the traditional rotor-plate energy meter design.The first attempts at electronic energy meters derived power by multiplying current and voltage in the analog domain, but the linearity over temperature and time proved to be no better than electromechanical meters. The stability, linearity, and accuracy provided by automatic error detection/correction of digital calculations has already swept across the communications industry and now has arrived at the door of electrical power metrology. Digital signal processing (DSP)-based products perform multiplication and other calculations on current- and voltage signals that have been digitized with on-chip analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Processing the signals digitally provides stable and accurate calculations over time despite variations in the environment.