Understanding Your Meter
Your electric meter is designed to accurately measure the amount of electricity your home is using. At East Central Electric, we understand how important accurate meter reading and billing is to our customers. The following information will help you understand how your meter works so that you may track your meter readings each month for your own personal record.

kWh
The electricity you buy from East Central Electric is measured in kilowatt-hours. This measure reflects the number of kilowatts of electricity you use in a given period of time. A kilowatt is equal to 1,000 watts. If you turn on ten 100-watt light bulbs for one hour, you will use one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

The electric meter measures the number of kilowatt-hours used each month to heat your home and power your lights, water heater, refrigerator, television, clock radio and other appliances. Your meter may be either a dial meter or a digital meter.

Meter Tampering
Tampering with an electric meter is dangerous. Touching an energized meter socket could cause serious injury or death. Meter tampering also constitutes a criminal offense, which could result in fines or imprisonment. If you suspect a problem with your meter, please don’t tamper with it! Please call our Service Representatives for assistance.

ELECTRONICALLY
Most of the meters in ECE’s system report usage to our office using Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology. The automatic system ECE uses is called TWACS, which stands for Two-Way Automatic Communication System.

TWACS® is a fixed network utility communication system that uses patented technology to communicate over electric power lines, providing low-cost, highly-reliable, two-way communication between the utility and the consumers

TWACS eliminates estimated reads while providing accurate data and usage history. TWACS enables ECE employees the ability to do on-demand reads, and usage history ... all the hourly interval, member-specific data the Service Representative would need to resolve your inquiries in an efficient, timely manner. TWACS helps us respond quickly and accurately to billing inquiries, special read requests or payment problems.

METER READING
East Central Electric may need to read your meter at some point, however, the safety of our employees is very important and the presence of a locked gate or an unleashed dog may mean that our employee is unable to access your meter.

The Corporation Commission requires ECE to have 24-hour access to the meters.

Instructions for reading both Dial Meters and Digital Meters are detailed by clicking the related links. Link digital and dial