Analysis of electricity meters under distorted load conditions

Due to the rapid growth of non-linear loads in power systems in recent decades, harmonic pollution is becoming more and more serious. Energy measurement devices are commonly designed for working at sine wave. In this paper the results of an analysis on different electricity meters used in distribution network under different load conditions are presented. Study shows that error of energy meter's reading depends on the type of the meter, harmonic distortion, reactive energy and direction of reactive power. Measured errors were higher than 6% under some conditions.