Abstract :
Whilst the Smart Power meter is a highly sophisticated electronic device operated by an `intelligent´ smart card, its ancestry can be traced back through the token meter era of the 1980s and 1990s, to the days of the coin-operated meter. With the benefit of many years practical experience operating a coin meter system Midlands Electricity (MEB), UK, became well aware of their disadvantages-mainly theft from meters and/or MEB employees-but there were also many other customer related problems. To eliminate these difficulties, during the mid 1980´s they began the transition to token meters. However, token meters brought with them their own `special brand´ of problems. Token fraud became rife; the cost of tokens and customer plastic cards was prohibitive; it was difficult to gain access to read and re-set such meters; and the number of special calls became unacceptable. Here, the author describes how MEB set out to solve the problems created by token meters by introducing a meter which was user friendly and incorporated the best features of 13 different types of token meter used by MEB
