Too bad you're not closer to us here in Portland... Local PoCo (actually one of two majors serving the metro area) is changing all of their meters over to digital now--all of the old analog meters are just being thrown in a big pile after final readings are taken. Not sure what they plan to do with all of them (wholesale to smaller utilities?) but I managed to get ahold of one fairly easily. When I called the guy in the meter services department, his only question was "how many, and where do you want them?" I only asked for one to build a meter lamp, but I bet they wouldn't think twice if someone asked to bring their truck and load up. Mine was shipped to my door, free of (upfront) charge.
Great ! I would have loved to have a look in that meter pile at your POCO. One thing is sure. These new meters won't last the time. Within 5 years most of these new meters will develop problems within the electronic parts, or just stop working.
Above HWH meter is from the 1920's, the fact that it measure Hectowatthours and made in Paris makes it a special meter for me.
The product of rotation, excitation and flux produces electricty.
The biggest problem with mechanical meters is they run slower over time and the customer gets more and more free electricity. The electronic ones stay accurate far longer and can report usage over the power lines as well as time of day usage. The failure of internal components is going to be an issue but I have seen lots of electronic meters that are 16 to 20 years old and still in reliable operating order.
The meters they are putting in are the type that use a wireless network (probably CDMA). Among other reasons they've stated for switching, include the ability to know when individual customers are without power, and to reduce fuel consumption with all the meter readers. Of course, that will also mean reduced staffing costs, although there will still be a few meter readers and tech to take care of malfunctioning units.
mikesh the electromechanical meters from the last 35 years with floton bearings (Sangamo, Landis&Gyr, English Electric) generally don't suffer from slowing down. Generally they are very accurate and often within the +-2% range. The older meters with pivolt and jewel bearing do suffer from wear and tear and can slow down as well as speed up as the brake magnet weakens over time.
Electronic meters are very sensitive to spikes on the grid. Lightning and switching surges. Also the capacitors tend to fail and cause errors. We had major problems with Enermet meters with faulty capacitors which failed in warm outside meter boxes. Also LCD displays don't like big temperature variations.
The advantages are remote reading capabilities and time of use data as noderasor sais.
The product of rotation, excitation and flux produces electricty.
Rodalco Thanks for that. I will update the data banks. Trouble is every new bit of info pops an old one out. I will probably be OK as long as I remember the wife's name ;-)
