Microprocessor based energy consumption meter

Claim 1

An electricity meter for measuring, registering and reading a consumer's electrical energy consumption via an energy distribution in which the cost per unit energy of consumption differs from time to time, comprising: a sensor providing an output signal representative of the electrical energy supplied to a consumer; a time signal generating means; a plurality of memory cells; a central processing unit for calculating the power and/or energy supplied to the consumer from said output signal and storing the calculated values in the memory cells, said central processing unit receiving information as to the real time from the time signal generating means and information as to the tariff related to said real time from the memory unit; a read out means for the contents of the memory cells; there being at least two groups of the memory cells; the number of groups of memory cells corresponding to the number of particular portions of the billing period for which separate power and/or energy values are to be obtained; each group including first cells separately storing the various tariffs applying to different periods within a day and night belonging to the particular partial period associated with said group, and second cells separately storing the power and/or energy values calculated for said particular partial period; the groups being successively connected to the central processing unit under the control of the time signal generating means.