Magnetic Fields in Watt-Hour Meters Effects of Wave Form on the Registration of Single-Phase Watt-Hour Meters

The growing use of electrical equipment which causes distortion in the supply voltage and current has caused increased concern regarding the performance of watt-hour meters used to meter the energy required by such equipment. The watthour meter is designed and adjusted, in practice, to operate on practically distortionless current and voltage. An analysis of the factors involved and an experimental study of meter registration under definitely controlled conditions show that watt-hour meters should perform satisfactorily unless the degree of distortion is large. These controlled conditions included wide variations in the distortion of potential and current both individually and together. The characteristics of meters of recent design, of all the major manufacturers, were studied experimentally.