Indore: Meters Weighing 250g To 4.5kg At West Discom’s Museum

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Post-Independence the electricity meters, which were installed in the city under the power expansion project, were imported from Germany and weighed 4.5 kg each. Today, the weight of 18 smart meters put together is 4.5 kg!

You will get to know such information and other interesting tidbits when you visit the museum of electricity meters at headquarters of Madhya Pradesh West Zone Electricity Distribution Company.

Post-Independence there was electricity only in selected places. In the city of Indore, Municipal Corporation used to torches on the main roads. There was regular staff at that time to put kerosene in the torches for keeping them burning.

The city's electricity system expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. Meters to measure electricity also had come from Germany.

Those and many more electricity meters have been preserved in the headquarters of the power company. The weight of German-made meters was about 4.5 kg each, and 99 per cent of the material in it is made of iron.

It has a magnet of about one kg. As time passed, changes took place in the meters. The amount of iron in them kept on decreasing and the amount of fibre, plastic, aluminium etc increased.

While the weight of meters decreased, technical features in them increased. At present, the weight of smart meters is 250 grams.

Difference between old and smart meters

Old meter Smart meter

Wheel rotation for units count Digital numbers

Difficult to see at nights Easy to see even at nights

Used to take only readings Now load, power factor too

No less power calculation Now micro level calculation