Harry Havasu
Lake Havasu City, Az.
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I'm trying to assist a friend determine his power use at his home. Power company just installed a new digital meter set at zero.
If the first 24 hours shows on the meter as 200, does that mean that 200 kilowatts were used in that period?
If so, can I get a rough estimate of his monthly electric bill by multiplying use (200 KW) by rate (10 cents per KWH) or $20.00 for the first day and then times 30 days - or $600.00 for an estimated month ???
Seems awful high. Did I miss something?
Harry Havasu
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SDkid
Johnston City, Il
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was that 20.0 Kw or 200 Kw 6000 kw month is a lot of power
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Wayne Dohnal
Banks, OR.
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Are you sure the 200 number is for killowatt hours? Is the last digit possibly tenths? Ten cents per kWh is close to the actual cost in many parts of the country. A few places are lower, a lot are higher.
In some cases, the meter reads only a percentage of the actual use and the reading must be multiplied by a fixed constant. This is fairly rare, but does exist. I've got one of these and the meter reading is multiplied by 40.
My old meter was replaced by a new digital "smart" meter a few months ago. It flashes 3 different readings on its LCD and I don't know what the heck they represent. The power company hasn't been able to read it and I haven't received a bill for 3 months. "Better living through technology".
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Harry Havasu
Lake Havasu City, Az.
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SDkid
Thanks for the response. The fellow who set the meter didn't know much more than me about the meter. He claimed there is no decimal point in the meter and that would mean 200 KWs.
It seems like a lot of power to me, too since my friend claims his neighbors' bills run about $300 per month.
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megsfolks
Spokane, WA
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The display can show demand (Watts) or consumption (Watt-hours). Most of the digital meeters would rotate between Demand (kiloWatt) and Consumption (kiloWatthour). There should be a notation on the digital display to indicate which number is being displayed. Also, if there is a decimal, it should show also.
200kWh does seem quite high for 24 hours of temperate weather.. here in Spokane, WA I used 44kWh over the last 24 hours with heaters and such running in a 3200 sq foot home with temperatures in the 20s.
Anyway, the distinction between Watts and Watt-hours is important. Your calculation is correct, but possibly more by coincidence. Watts are the instantaneous power draw at any moment. For instance, you could measure the instantaneous power consumption of a 100W bulb to be, obviously, 100W. Now, if you left that light on for 1 hour, you would use 100Watt-hours of energy. Similarly, if you turned off that light after 30 minutes, you would measure 50Watt-hours of energy (100W used continuously over 30 minutes = 100W x 1/2 hour = 50Wh). It is pretty straight forward, but is kinda confusing. A lot of people find it easy to use the following analogy; a Speedometer is like Watts, and the odometer is like Watt-hours.
Billing by utilities, in most places for residences, is done in kWh. As you noted, your rates are 10 cents per kWh (k=kilo=1000x). So, your friend's consumption of 200kWh over 24 hours would relate to 200kWh x $0.10 per kWh = $20 per day--as you calculated. That does seem increadibly high.
If you respond with the brand of meter, I might be able to tell you better what it is showing on its display.
My guess is that either (1) There is a faint decimal point as suggested and the 24 hour load is actually 20.0 kWH or (2) the value noted was actually something other than consumption. I'd suggest looking at the display closely to see if there are any indicators such as kWh or Wh to indicate what the display is showing as it goes through it's display cycle.
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Matthew_B
The boonies near Dallas, Oregon
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As others have noted, it's kilo-watt hours, or KWh.
I agree, 200 is awful high.
Wayne Dohnal wrote:In some cases, the meter reads only a percentage of the actual use and the reading must be multiplied by a fixed constant. This is fairly rare, but does exist. I've got one of these and the meter reading is multiplied by 40.
I've seen one that said "multiply by 3.2 million" and the bugger was spinning pretty good too. Wana guess where?
Wayne Dohnal wrote:My old meter was replaced by a new digital "smart" meter a few months ago. It flashes 3 different readings on its LCD and I don't know what the heck they represent.
Usually it's peak KW, peak KVAR and KWh. All of the meters I've seen have a little symbol on the LCD that lights up for each reading.
Commercial and industrial customers pay the power company a much lower rate on the KWh, but have to also pay a large demand charge based on the KW and (possibly) the KVAR.
For residential, all pay on is the KWh.
Wayne Dohnal wrote:The power company hasn't been able to read it and I haven't received a bill for 3 months. "Better living through technology".
Too bad they haven't got it right. My changeover was seamless. The power company now knows when my power is off because they lose contact with the meter.
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Wayne Dohnal
Banks, OR.
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Quote:
I've seen one that said "multiply by 3.2 million" and the bugger was spinning pretty good too. Wana guess where?
Grand Coulee?
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Matthew_B
The boonies near Dallas, Oregon
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Wayne Dohnal wrote:Quote:
I've seen one that said "multiply by 3.2 million" and the bugger was spinning pretty good too. Wana guess where?
Grand Coulee?
Nope, not that big.
Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. The meter was good to .1% and registered tenths. So it ticked off 320,000kWHr +/- 320kWHr. Being high or low but still in the tolerance was a heck of a lot of money from one end to the other.
I wonder if Grand Coulee has one meter? There are multiple lines coming out at two different voltages so I highly doubt it.
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krmcg
New Boston, Texas
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reply removed by poster...
* This post was
edited 01/31/09 01:24am by krmcg *
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pritch272
Martinez, GA
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Just curious, might there be a meter "model #" that might help determine it's functionality?
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