How is my analog electric meter being read?

Question

I am trying to figure out how the electric utility service reads my meter. We have an old electric meter, with a mechanical spinning disc and the analog faces above it.

The meter has not been upgraded by the utility in many years (at least 10 for certain). As far as I know, this meter does not have the capability to be read remotely. I read online that:

Your electrical consumption is read manually by a utility service person who visits the home to read the numbers on the dials. A mechanical electric meter cannot be read remotely. Your building's electrical consumption is calculated by subtracting last month's numbers from this month's reading. A savvy consumer can learn to read these dials to gauge their own electric usage and verify that utility charges are accurate.

Source (emphasis mine)

Now comes the part I can't understand. Someone is home almost every day, and we are generally very aware of who is around our house. The meter is at least 30 feet from the street and the driveway. Someone would have to park in our driveway and walk right in front of the house to read the meter. We have never seen someone from the utility read this meter in the last 10 years.

We regularly see a car, clearly marked as being from the utility company with antennas all over it. I always assumed that they were able to read the meter from the street. But I don't think that is what is going on. How could a meter this old be read remotely?

A few times I have read the dials and they do seem to make sense based on the bill. But how are they reading it?

If it matters, our electric bill always says something like Read Type: ACTUAL. What am I missing.

This is our meter:

Answer 1

Your meter is a General Electric watthour meter type I-70-S catalog # 720X70G1 with the optional pointer register. It is fitted with an electronic circuit board mounted inside the housing to enable communication with the utility's billing computer via the power lines.

If you enter 'general electric watthour meter type "i-70-s"' into your favorite search engine you can learn all about the many editions of this popular instrument. Of course you can't believe everything you read on the internet. For example, the spruce's claim that "A mechanical electric meter cannot be read remotely" is the opposite of true.

GE originally made this meter without any remote or automatic read function. Many companies make AMR retrofit boards for the I-70-S. Your power utility must have bought batches of meters from a retrofit company decades ago.

Answer 2

We regularly see a car, clearly marked as being from the utility company with antennas all over it.

Your meter likely has a pulse counter with a radio transmitter connected to it that those antennas on the utility vehicle are reading.

The disc that's spinning in the center of the meter has a needle or notch at one spot with a corresponding needle or notch inside the meter. There's a pair of wires leading out of this to a box somewhere (often just sitting in the bottom of the meter socket) with some electronics and long-duration battery that detects each time the opposite end of that wire is short-circuited or open-circuited. Then it just transmits that number along with some unique identifier for your meter.

This output is called a KYZ interface and has been around for ages. It's the same way they're reading your water meter and your natural gas meter, if you've got either of those.

Answer 3

In many places, the meter is only read sporadically, and approximations based on past usage and "heating days" are used between those points. This may or may not be indicated on your bill.

If it really matters -- if there's a rate change coming up that you think might make the error a nontrivial amount of money -- you can request an actual reading. A real reading is also taken when you close or open an account, eg when the house is purchased.

As you said in the comments, "usually close enough."

Answer 4

( The question is how they access it without my knowledge – nuggethead )

The answer needs to come from the utility. Anything else is speculation. Call the utility company.

Answer 5

This is how our utility company upgraded our meters (Bulgaria, EU, but pretty much applicable elsewhere):

The old (rotary, geared, analog) meters were generally inside the property and one had to welcome the meter guy/girl inside to copy the readings.

The new fancy, digital, ir-readable meters are generally in an enclosed panel on the utility pole on the street with a double cover - transparent (one can see own readings and even reset their own breakers should a need arise, they are exposed) and metal sheet that locks over the transparent cover. Owners generally keep a key to the metal cover and not to the transparent one.

What the lazy replacement people did: they installed the panel with the new meter on the pole and did not bother to remove the old meters.

(in addition to laziness, there was some diplomacy: we don't look around your meter for signs of tampering, you lose the option to tamper with your meter for good)

Most people ended up with the old meter in the house that no one comes to read anymore.

p.s. in the new reality the meter guy/girl is pretty hard to spot, at least in friendly neighborhoods - once in a month they walk to the panel (no car involved), open the meter box, make some quiet beep-beep-beep with a portable phone-like device, close the cover and walk away. About 30 seconds in total for a box with 1-10 subscriber meters inside.

This made some people thinking that their bills are completely made-up.