Reading your meter

Reading your meter can help you better understand your energy usage.

Analogue electricity meter

Meter using dials

The following analogue electricity meter uses five dials to give a reading.

An analogue electricity meter that uses dials

Try reading this meter!

• Starting from the left-most dial (10,000), record the numbers from left to right.
• When a dial hand points between numbers, record the lower number.
• The numbers recorded from the image above should be 3-4-9-4-6. This reading represents 34,946 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Why does the '1,000' dial read as '4' and not '5'?

• In the above example, the '1,000' dial appears to be indicating that the pointer is on the number 5, but the correct reading is the number 4.
• This is because the '100' dial has not completed a full circle. Once it does, the '1,000' dial fully moves to the next number.

Note
Not all dial meter displays look like the above example. In some meters, the numbers in each dial run in the opposite direction to the dials shown above.

'Odometer' type meter

Another kind of analogue electricity meter reads like an odometer in your car. Numbers are read from left to right.

An analogue electricity meter that looks like an odometer

The meter has five white digits that show the kilowatt hours of electricity that have been used.

The above image shows 92,992 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Electronic electricity meter

The electronic electricity meter is read using the display button to switch through a series of screens. All readings are recorded in an electronic memory, which does not switch off if power is lost.

ActewAGL uses many different styles of electronic meters. The following illustration and instructions pertain to a commo example of the electronic electricity meter.

An electronic electricity meter

To read the meter, press the display button. The first screen is the test pattern and shows a series of 8s. To read the other screens, press the display button to move onto the next one. Beside each reading a number will appear:

• 01 shows the time
• 03 shows the total main circuit kWh reading
• 07 shows the total off-peak reading
• 13-14 show 'on' and 'off' times for the first off-peak period
• 15-16 show 'on' and 'off' times for the second off-peak period
• 18 shows the serial number of the meter

Note
Not all electronic electricity meters look like the illustration above. For example, the latest meters installed display the kilowatt hours used in three separate registers.