One other disadvantage Bush has found is lightning damage. We make sure the pole ground is measured. Adding a socket arrester might be a next step. The diagnostic tools built into the new meters can help spot problems that make a huge difference in metering accuracy. A wiring mistake can create a metering error that might go undetected for years.
People talk about losing a third to half of their revenue from miswired installations.
A good utility in the past sent out a serviceman with a bunch of phase angle meters and voltage meters. He would take about 45 minutes to verify everything was wired correctly. Another advantage of solid-state electronic meters, says Waters, is abundant information. There are a number of power-quality features manufacturers have built in, and they keep getting better with every new generation. There is certainly value in knowing what's going on at that location, the number of outages, voltage flicker, the level of harmonics.