Latest meter verification: 4 September 2026. Sources accompany the specifications.
Choose what you need
Start with the reading, then match the meter and CTs.
Choose an electricity reading
You need
Read
Confirm before ordering
Consumption
Metered kWh
Voltage measurement, CT pairing and pulse weight
Demand
kW and kVA
Demand interval and per-phase readings
Billing
Approved and verified measurement
Measurement Canada approval for the meter and CTs
Measurements and ordering mistakes
kWh, kW demand, kVA and power factor
Real power, in kW, is the part that does work. Apparent power, in kVA, is the vector sum of real and reactive power, and it is what the conductors and the transformer physically have to carry. Reactive power, in kVAr, oscillates between the source and inductive loads such as motors and transformers without doing net work, and the three sit on one right triangle: kVA² = kW² + kVAr², with power factor defined as kW divided by kVA. Energy in kWh is the accumulation of real power over time, or as Accuenergy puts it, "the accumulated number is the total power in kilowatts that has been used over a period of time, thus giving you the energy as expressed in kilowatt hour".
A real three-phase meter reports each phase separately, and the difference shows up the moment one leg is loaded harder than the others. The Acuvim II publishes over 400 parameters, and its own Modbus map lists phase A, B and C line-to-neutral voltages at 4002H through 4007H, phase and neutral currents at 4012H through 401BH, per-phase and total active power at 401CH through 4023H, and per-phase and total power factor at 4034H through 403BH. No source we found treats "meter one phase and assume the other two match" as accepted practice for facility sub-metering, so treat it as an approximation with an error nobody has quantified rather than a sizing method.
A revenue meter is one that has been approved as a type, verified and sealed, which is what section 9(1) of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act requires before a meter can be used to obtain the basis of a charge. A sub-meter can be identical hardware with the same accuracy class and none of that legal standing, which is fine right up until somebody gets invoiced from it. A current-only sensor is a third thing again: it measures amps, and any kWh it displays is arithmetic done on a voltage and a power factor that were typed in at commissioning.
The incomer gives you the whole site and matches the utility bill, which makes it the right first meter and a poor second one. Feeders and motor control centres are where the number starts telling you something you can act on, machines are where it tells you what a part costs to make, and tenant metering is a separate exercise with its own rules. Where a panel has many circuits worth watching, one multi-circuit chassis usually beats a rack of single meters: the AcuRev 2100 takes 18 single-phase or 6 to 9 polyphase circuits, Dent's PowerScout 48 HD takes up to 16 three-phase or 48 single-phase, and a Veris E31 board reads up to 92 points across two panels.
Continental Control Systems' selection guidance is to take the lowest CT rating that is equal to or greater than the service, breaker or fuse rating being monitored, then leave headroom for inrush, which is why it steps a 125 A load up to a 200 A CT rather than a 150 A one. The other half of the same decision is mechanical. An Accuenergy AcuCT S125 opens to 32.0 mm, which clears one 4/0 AWG THHN conductor at about 16.31 mm, and will not close around two of them bundled.
Voltage input range is a hard limit, and it moves between models in the same family. Siemens' own selection guide puts the 7KM PAC3200T at 400 V maximum while the 7KM PAC3220 reaches 690 V, so the first one cannot sit on a 347/600 V service at all. Accuenergy's AcuRev 1310 measures 10 to 400 V line-to-neutral directly or up to 690 V line-to-line, and the Acuvim II reaches 828 V line-to-line, which covers Canadian 600 V work without a potential transformer.
Milesight's CT10x and CT3xx datasheets list one detection parameter, RMS current, and no voltage channel anywhere in the electrical specification. The user guide gives the energy formula outright: energy consumption equals kiloampere hours times voltage times power factor, where the voltage and the power factor are static values an installer types in, with ranges of 0 to 600 V and 0 to 1. The current reading is real and good; the kWh is an estimate that will not follow a facility whose voltage or power factor moves.
Section 9(1) of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act says a meter used to obtain the basis of a charge for electricity may not be put into service until it has been verified and sealed, and section 9(4) makes approval of type a precondition of that verification. "Revenue grade" is a datasheet claim about accuracy class, usually ANSI C12.20 Class 0.2 or 0.5, and it carries no legal weight on its own. Only approval under specification S-E-06, followed by verification and sealing, makes a meter lawful to bill from.
Modbus RTU is a two-wire EIA/TIA-485 bus, and the Modbus Organization's own serial-line specification sets the constraints: slave addresses 1 to 247, 9600 and 19200 baud required, 1000 m of trunk at 9600 baud on AWG 26 or heavier cable, and a line termination at each of the two cable ends. None of that reaches a dashboard by itself. Something has to poll the bus and publish, which is what a gateway such as the AcuLink 810 is for, and it needs a run of cable and 24 VDC that nobody budgeted.
Answer six steps to rank meters and prepare a requirements sheet.
This tool needs JavaScript. Without it, every question below is still readable, and the catalogue and the decision tree do the same job by hand.
Meters ruled out and why
Follow the decision tree
The same seven questions the picker asks, in the same order.
The decision tree in words
Purpose. Do you need energy totals, live demand and per-phase detail, or power quality? Energy alone can come off a pulse. Demand, power factor and per-phase values need read-only Modbus or BACnet, and power quality needs a meter that captures THD and harmonics.
Billing. Will the reading be used to charge somebody? If yes, the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act applies and the meter needs an approved type, verification and sealing, the current transformer needs its own approval under S-E-07, and in Ontario tenant billing runs through a unit sub-meter provider licensed by the OEB. If it feeds your own dashboard only, none of that fires.
Service. Get the service voltage and the phase configuration before anything else, because voltage input range is a hard limit. A 347/600 V service needs a 600 V class input; a 400 V class meter cannot go there. Confirm whether it is 1P2W, 1P3W, 3P3W or 3P4W, since a three-wire and a four-wire connection are different wiring diagrams.
Scope. Decide what you are metering and how many circuits: the incomer, a few feeders, a motor control centre, individual machines, or tenant spaces. One incomer is a single meter. A dozen branch circuits is a multi-circuit chassis, which is cheaper per point but takes every circuit down together if it fails.
Current transformer. If the conductor can be de-energized, a solid-core CT gives the tightest accuracy class. If it cannot, a split-core clamps around a live conductor and a Rogowski coil fits busbar and bundled runs that no rigid window will take. Then match the output, 5 A or 333 mV or Rogowski, to what the meter accepts, and check the window against the conductor's outside diameter.
Output signal. Read-only Modbus first, because it carries energy, demand, per-phase values and power factor. A kWh pulse into a LoRaWAN counter second, when there is no cable route but the meter has a pulse terminal. A LoRaWAN CT sensor third, for current trending, remembering its kWh is estimated from a typed-in voltage and power factor. BACnet where the building automation system already speaks it. Green Button where you want no hardware at all.
Mount and power. DIN rail in a panel, a panel cutout with a display, or a wireless clamp with nothing to wire. Then find the supply: self-powered from the voltage inputs, wide-range control power, 24 VDC auxiliary, harvested from the conductor, or a battery.
Shortlist. Run the picker below with those answers, then send the distributor checklist with your request for a quote.
Our picks and their limits
Check the caveat before choosing a model.
Our picks, their limits and Canadian buying routes
Start with the correction that changes a shortlist. Milesight's CT101, CT103, CT105 and CT310 are excellent current sensors and they are not energy meters: the datasheets list one detection parameter, RMS current, and the user guide computes energy as kiloampere hours times a voltage and a power factor the installer types in. Use them where you want load visibility on a circuit that has no cable route, and call the kWh an estimate every time. For metered kWh over the same radio, put a Milesight EM300-DI on a real meter's pulse output, or a Milesight UC300 on its RS-485 port as a Modbus master.
Dragino belongs in this catalogue as a gateway, not as a CT meter. A full crawl of its catalogue, 18 categories and roughly 90 products, turned up no clamp-on CT and no energy meter, and there is no energy or power category at all. Its RS485-LN is a battery-powered Modbus-to-LoRaWAN bridge that polls whatever registers you program into it, which is the same pattern as the UC300 with a different power model.
Three model numbers in circulation do not name a current product. Accuenergy's DIN-rail line is the AcuRev 1310, 1312 and 1320, and there is no AcuRev 1300; the 1312 is the configuration Accuenergy markets as Measurement Canada approved, with a dedicated Canada-approved user manual, and the approval number appears nowhere in its roughly 2,000 lines of text. Siemens' current SENTRON lineup lists the 7KM PAC3200T and the 7KM PAC4220 where people still say PAC3200 and PAC4200. Elkor's WattsOn-1100 is not on the company's current site either; WattsOn-Mark II is what you can order, and Elkor is at 6 Bainard Street in London, Ontario, not Calgary.
Two honest gaps. No Measurement Canada approval number was found published for any Eastron, Carlo Gavazzi, Schneider Electric or Siemens model, which is why every one of those rows reads unknown rather than no. And Socomec is thin: socomec.com and socomec.us both refused every fetch, and the only DIRIS A-40 material recovered came from 2019 and 2020 archives of Socomec's own file server, a Modbus register map and a Profibus manual, with no voltage range, current input or accuracy class among them. DIRIS A-30, Countis E and DIRIS Digiware are not in the catalogue at all, because a stub entry would read like knowledge we do not have.
Check the CT window and ratio
Match the CT to the conductor, service rating and meter input.
Inputs to the CT check
Input
Use
Service rating
Breaker or fuse rating sets the minimum CT rating
Conductor dimensions
Measured outside diameter or bus width and thickness sets the window
Typical load
Check accuracy at the load you expect, not just at full rating
Meter input
Match 5 A, 333 mV or Rogowski output to the meter
Pick a CT for your service
This tool needs JavaScript. The CT ratios, windows and accuracy bands it checks against are printed below it, so you can do the same comparison by hand.
Window fit is compared against the Cerrowire THHN/THWN-2 conductor dimensions, which are a real product's outside diameters built to NFPA 70 rather than a code table. Treat the fit verdict as a first pass and measure the conductor before you order.
Accuracy classes, installation and sizing evidence
Size to the breaker, then check the load against it
Continental Control Systems' guidance is to "select the CT model with the lowest rated amps that are equal to or greater than the rating of the service, breaker, or fuse circuit being monitored", then add headroom for turn-on surge. Their own example steps a 125 A load to a 200 A CT rather than a 150 A one, and for loads with a crest factor above roughly 1.4 they suggest sizing to about 150% of expected RMS current so the meter's input does not saturate. Sizing to the breaker also keeps you inside the conductor's ampacity for free, because the breaker was already sized under it.
The low-load accuracy floor, and why headroom is not free
CTs hold their accuracy class only across a band. IEC 61869-2 tests Class 0.5, 0.5S, 0.2 and 0.2S at 20%, 100% and 120% of rated primary current, and the S classes exist precisely because standard-range metering CTs lose their stated accuracy below roughly 10% of rating. IEEE and ANSI C57.13-2008 characterizes its standard classes at 10% and at 100 to 120%, with an enhanced option that holds accuracy from about 1% to 120%. So the practical instruction for the picker is to ask for the expected minimum load, not only the breaker size, and to flag the choice when that minimum lands below about 10% of the CT rating.
CT windows are fixed openings, and no CT datasheet we read states a maximum wire gauge, so comparing the window against the conductor's outside diameter is a calculation you have to do rather than a spec you can look up. On the CT side, Accuenergy's solid-core AcuCT S125 opens to 32.0 mm and its switchgear S220 to 57.0 mm, while the 333 mV split-core line runs 19.05, 31.75 and 50.8 mm plus a 76 by 127 mm busbar slot. On the conductor side, Cerrowire's THHN/THWN-2 spec sheet puts 4/0 AWG at about 16.31 mm, 500 kcmil at 24.10 mm and 1000 kcmil at 33.27 mm.
Put those together and the S125's 32 mm window clears one 4/0 conductor comfortably, and will not take two of them bundled, which come to roughly 33 mm across before you allow for the packing gap. At that point you are choosing between a 57 mm window, a Rogowski coil, or a pair of identical CTs with their secondaries paralleled. Those Cerrowire figures are a real product's dimensions built to NFPA 70, not a transcription of NEC Chapter 9 Table 5 and not a CSA C22.1 table, neither of which we were able to retrieve, so cite them as what they are.
A 5 A or 1 A CT drives a current loop and is the traditional switchgear choice, and it is the one that carries the open-secondary hazard and needs a shorting block. A 333 mV CT has the burden resistor built in, so its output is a defined low voltage, it is safe to leave open, and the meter has to have a 333 mV input to accept it. A Rogowski coil fits what nothing else will and needs an integrator, either inside the meter or as a kit. Match this to the meter first, because a meter with only 333 mV inputs will not take a 5 A CT and no adapter in the catalogue changes that cheaply.
Burden and lead length
On a 5 A or 1 A CT, the meter's input impedance plus the resistance of the leads between CT and meter both count against the CT's rated burden, and exceeding it degrades accuracy. None of the Accuenergy 5 A and 1 A solid-core datasheets we read published a burden VA figure, so ask the vendor for it directly before specifying a long run, and keep the leads as short as the panel allows in the meantime. The 333 mV line sidesteps the question by design and publishes one flat lead length, 8 ft or 2.4 m, across every model regardless of ratio.
Circuits at 400 A and larger usually run several parallel conductors per phase, and the documented answer is one identical CT on each conductor with the secondaries wired in parallel, never in series. The effective rating is the sum of the individual ratings, so two 100 A CTs behave as 200 A, and the accuracy penalty is negligible because "parallel operation tends to average out the nominal errors of the individual CTs". The same trick sums several branch circuits or sub-panels onto one meter input for a whole-building total. Every CT in the set has to be the same part number and rating, and no individual CT's own limit may be exceeded.
Direct-connect DIN-rail meters carry the load current through the meter body and need no CT at all inside their rating. Eastron's SDM120 is 45 A, the SDM230 and SDM630-Modbus are 100 A, and the SDM630-TCP is 65 A; Carlo Gavazzi's EM24 and EM340 are 65 A direct, the EM112 is 100 A and the EM111 is 32 A. Above those ceilings you are back to CTs, and the terminals on a direct-connect meter take full-size conductors, so the wiring is heavier than the meter's footprint suggests.
Billing demand is the highest average power over a defined interval inside the billing period, not an instantaneous peak, so a one-second spike does not set it and a sustained load does. Every Accuenergy meter we reviewed exposes a field-programmable demand interval rather than a fixed one, and Siemens' MID-certified PAC2200 CLP variant records active energy quarter-hourly. What we could not confirm is a specific Ontario-mandated interval length: no OEB or IESO page we reached states one, so this page does not print "15 minutes" as a requirement. Set the interval to match whatever the utility bills on and get that figure from the bill or the account manager.
The two accuracy-class families, and what each one is tested at
Current transformer accuracy classes under IEEE and ANSI C57.13-2008 and IEC 61869-2, with the percentage of rated current each class is tested at
Standard and class
Accuracy
Phase angle
Tested at, as a share of rated current
IEEE and ANSI C57.13-2008, Class 1.2
±1.2% at 100% and 120%; ±2.4% at 10%
Not stated in the source read
10%, 100%, 120%. Enhanced option holds ±0.75% and ±0.50° from 1% to 120%
IEEE and ANSI C57.13-2008, Class 0.6
±0.6% at 100% and 120%; ±1.2% at 10%
Not stated in the source read
10%, 100%, 120%. Enhanced option holds ±0.50% and ±0.25° from 1% to 120%
IEEE and ANSI C57.13-2008, Class 0.3
±0.3% at 100% and 120%
Not stated in the source read
100%, 120%. Enhanced option holds ±0.50% and ±0.25° from 1% to 120%, and is stated to exceed IEC 61869-2 Class 0.5S
IEC 61869-2:2012, Class 1.0
±1.0%
±1.0°, 60 minutes
100%, 120%
IEC 61869-2:2012, Class 0.5 and 0.5S
±0.50%
±0.50°, 30 minutes
20%, 100%, 120%
IEC 61869-2:2012, Class 0.2 and 0.2S
±0.20%
±0.167°, 10 minutes
20%, 100%, 120%
Both tables from Continental Control Systems on CT accuracy standards. These are CT classes. Meter accuracy classes, ANSI C12.20 Class 0.2 and 0.5 and IEC 62053-22 Class 0.1S, 0.2S and 0.5S, are a separate rating on the meter itself, and the same source is blunt about combining them: "system accuracy (meter with CTs) can be much worse than just the meter accuracy or even the naive addition of the meter and CT accuracies". A 0.5-class meter behind a 1% CT is a 1% measurement.
Choose the read route
Read-only Modbus first, then metered pulses. LoRaWAN is one of the 900 MHz protocols we install; Digi XBee and similar radios reach the same gateway. Current-only LoRaWAN gives estimated energy.
Electricity meter signal, the Quantify device that reads it, what it gives you, and our preference
Meter signal
Our device
What you get
Preference
Modbus RTU or TCP, from a panel meter, a DIN-rail meter or a multi-circuit chassis
A Modbus gateway such as the AcuLink 810, or a UC300 where the link has to be LoRaWAN. Read-only: function codes 03 and 04, never a write
kWh, kW, kVA, kVAr, per-phase voltage and current, power factor and demand, as far as the register map goes
Preferred, and the richest data set
A kWh pulse output on a real meter, S0 or dry contact
LoRaWAN pulse counter, the Milesight EM300-DI
Metered consumption, pulses times the pulse weight, with no assumed voltage anywhere in it
Second choice, and still a measured number
A LoRaWAN CT sensor clamped on the conductor, Milesight CT10x or CT3xx
LoRaWAN network server, no wiring at the sensor
Measured current and amp-hours. Any kWh is estimated from a voltage and power factor entered at setup
Third, for current trending, and the kWh is flagged as an estimate
No hardware at all: Green Button, Download My Data or Connect My Data
None; the data is authorized to us and pulled
Consumption, billing and customer information from the distributor. Interval granularity is not stated by the sources we read
Shown, not ranked
Signal wiring, pulse weights and utility access
Modbus RTU and Modbus TCP
Modbus RTU rides on a two-wire EIA/TIA-485 balanced pair, and the Modbus Organization's own serial-line specification sets the numbers people usually guess at. The addressing space is 256, with 0 reserved for broadcast and slaves assigned 1 to 247. Baud rates of 9600 and 19200 are required and 19200 is the default, with 1200 through 115k optional. Trunk length is 1000 m at 9600 baud on AWG 26 or heavier cable, and each of the two ends of the trunk takes a line termination, either 150 Ω at 0.5 W or 120 Ω in series with a 1 nF capacitor where the pair also needs polarization.
Register maps, and the Acuvim II as a worked example
A Modbus meter is only as usable as its register map, and Accuenergy publishes a full address-level map for the Acuvim II as a spreadsheet, version 1.07, with separate tabs for IEEE-754 float and 32-bit integer representations. Frequency sits at 4000H, the three line-to-neutral voltages at 4002H through 4007H, the line-to-line voltages at 400AH through 400FH, phase and neutral currents at 4012H through 401BH, per-phase and total active power at 401CH through 4023H, reactive at 4024H, apparent at 402CH and power factor at 4034H. On the energy tab, imported active energy is at 4048H, exported at 404AH, total at 4050H and apparent energy at 4058H.
The same map carries the detail that catches people out on a CT-fed meter. Every current and power register publishes two formulas, a primary mode that returns the raw secondary reading and a secondary mode that applies the programmed ratios, written as I = Rx × (CT1/CT2) and P = [Rx × (PT1/PT2) × (CT1/CT2)] / 1000. Set the ratio once at commissioning and every later read is already in true primary-side engineering units, so nobody downstream should be multiplying by 40 again.
Modbus itself is not a read-only protocol. The application protocol defines function codes 03 for read holding registers and 04 for read input registers, and 05, 06, 15 and 16 for the various writes, and a vendor decides which of its registers accept one. The Acuvim II's own energy accumulators are listed as read and write in its map, because a write is how a technician presets or clears them. Quantify's gateways are configured to issue only function codes 03 and 04 and never a write, which is an operating discipline we apply, not a property the protocol enforces on our behalf.
BACnet is the building-automation standard, and where a site already runs a BAS it is usually easier to add a point than to add a second network. Accuenergy sells a BACnet-native meter, the Acuvim IIBN, supporting BACnet/IP over Ethernet and BACnet MS/TP over RS-485 and BTL-listed as a Smart Sensor device, with no Modbus mentioned on its own product page. Where the meter you want speaks only Modbus, a gateway bridges it: the AcuLink 810 reads BACnet MS/TP and BACnet IP as inputs alongside Modbus and republishes as BACnet IP. No source we read gave a BACnet-specific cable length or device count for MS/TP, so treat the segment limits as the underlying RS-485 electrical ones and confirm them with the BAS integrator.
A pulse output closes a contact once per fixed increment of energy, which makes it the simplest thing on the meter and the least informative. Eastron's SDM630-Modbus V2 has two: pulse 1 is configurable at 2.5, 10 or 100 Wh, or 1, 10 or 100 kWh per pulse, with a pulse width of 200, 100 or 60 ms, and pulse 2 is fixed at 400 impulses per kWh, which is 2.5 Wh each. Siemens' 7KT PAC1600 carries an S0 pulse interface alongside Modbus RTU and M-Bus. What a pulse train cannot give you is demand or power factor: average demand can be approximated by timing pulses and dividing, but power factor is a phase relationship between voltage and current that "one more watt-hour happened" never carried.
The pulse rate never gets near the counter's ceiling
Take one of the largest services a client of ours would sub-meter, 400 A at 600 V three-phase, and run it at unity power factor: 1.7321 × 600 V × 400 A is 415,692 W, call it 415.7 kW. At 1 Wh per pulse that is 415,692 pulses an hour, or 115.5 Hz. At Eastron's finest documented weight of 2.5 Wh it is 46.2 Hz, and at a more typical 100 Wh it is 1.15 Hz.
A Milesight EM300-DI LoRaWAN pulse counter accepts up to 2000 Hz with a 250 µs minimum pulse width, so even the fastest of those three sits at 5.8% of the ceiling. Choose the pulse weight for how quickly you want a load event to become visible, not to protect the counter.
Milesight's CT101, CT103, CT105 and the three-channel CT310 clamp onto a live conductor, harvest their own power from it, and send over LoRaWAN with no wiring at the sensor. Their uplink carries instantaneous current, cumulative amp-hours and an onboard temperature, and Milesight's own decoder documentation shows no voltage field and no energy field. The devices are accurate to ±1% above 5 A RMS and ±3% at or below, hold up through about 12 hours of an overnight shutdown on stored energy, and are IP30, which is indoors only.
So the honest description is current trending with an estimated kWh. If a client needs metered energy over LoRaWAN there are two routes that give it. Put a Milesight EM300-DI on a real meter's kWh pulse output and the count is metered, no assumed voltage anywhere in it. Or put a Milesight UC300 on the meter's RS-485 port as a Modbus master, map the registers you want into its MODBUS channel, and you have true kWh, kW, voltage and power factor arriving over the same radio.
The AcuLink 810 is the piece that turns a panel of meters into one feed. It reads Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP/IP, BACnet MS/TP, BACnet IP, SunSpec, M-Bus and pulse counters, across dual Ethernet ports carrying up to 32 devices with RSTP, an RS-485 port for another 32, a USB port for 32 more through a converter, and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. It republishes over Modbus TCP/IP, BACnet IP, SNMP, HTTP or HTTPS, FTP or sFTP, or MQTT, keeps 8 GB of onboard logs across three independent loggers at intervals from 1 to 1440 minutes, and runs on 24 VDC from DIN rail or a wall.
Green Button has two features, and Toronto Hydro brands them precisely: "Download My Data" pulls consumption, billing and customer information, and "Connect My Data" authorizes a pre-approved third party to receive it, with the customer able to remove any connection themselves. The mandate date is where the sources disagree. The OEB states that rate-regulated electricity and natural gas utilities were required to provide access by 1 November 2023, while Alectra Utilities states the initiative was mandated across the province on 1 November 2021. Both are recorded here as published; the gap may be a phased rollout, and neither page explains it.
What we could not confirm is the granularity. Neither the OEB page nor the Alectra page states whether the underlying interval data is hourly, so treat it as not stated and ask the distributor rather than assuming. IESO's own settlement metering is a different system entirely: over 1800 metering installations recording every five-minute interval, validated and edited before settlement, and it applies to generators and loads that transact directly in the wholesale market, not to an ordinary commercial account.
A current transformer's secondary is a current source, and Accuenergy's installation guide for its 5 A and 1 A split-core CTs says the consequence plainly: "An open secondary can develop hazardous voltage and may damage equipment or create a shock hazard." That guide lists an approved CT shorting block or shorting terminal among the required installation hardware and marks 5 A and 1 A CTs as high open-circuit risk, shorting required. The equivalent guide for the 333 mV line marks the same two fields low risk, shorting not required, because the burden resistor is built into the CT and there is no open-circuit condition to guard against. A pre-conditioned Rogowski coil behaves the same way.
Voltage taps are the thinner part of the record. No manufacturer document we read states a fusing requirement or a disconnect ahead of a meter's voltage-sense leads, so this page publishes no fuse rating; put that question to the electrical contractor with the panel's own fault-current data in hand. What both Accuenergy guides do say is that installation "shall only be performed by qualified, competent professionals who have received training and have experience with high voltage and current devices". In Ontario the Electrical Safety Authority's position is that the only way to be sure the work is safe and legal is to hire a Licensed Electrical Contractor, who files the electrical notification with ESA, which is the permit, and whose work an inspector then reviews.
The CTs and the voltage taps are in cyan because that is the step a licensed electrician has to own, and the Modbus path is in cyan because it is the one we reach for first.
Keep energy, demand and supply separate
Check the reading units and how the meter itself gets power.
Reading and power checks
Check
Confirm
Energy and demand
kWh is accumulated energy; kW and kVA describe power
CT and PT multipliers
Confirm whether the meter already applies the programmed ratios
Supply
Self-powered, auxiliary, harvested or battery; check the exact model
Unit conversions, demand, tariffs and power options
The relations between real power, apparent power, reactive power, power factor and energy, and the conversion between kilowatt hours and gigajoules
Quantity
What it is
The relation
kW, real power
The power actually doing work, and what energy charges accumulate from
kW = kVA × PF
kVA, apparent power
The vector sum of real and reactive power, and what the conductors and transformer physically carry
kVA² = kW² + kVAr²
kVAr, reactive power
Power oscillating between source and inductive load without doing net work
kVAr = √(kVA² − kW²)
PF, power factor
A number from 0 to 1, or a percentage. PF = 1 means every volt-amp is doing work
PF = kW ÷ kVA
kWh, energy
Real power accumulated over time; the register only advances while real power flows
kWh = ∫ kW dt
kVAh, apparent energy
Apparent power accumulated over time. It appears in a handful of tariffs, rarely on an Ontario retail bill
kVAh = ∫ kVA dt
kWh to GJ
Useful only when comparing an electrical load against a gas-metered one, since Ontario electricity bills are in kWh and gas bills in GJ
1 kWh = 3.6 MJ = 0.0036 GJ, so 1 GJ ≈ 277.78 kWh
The power-triangle identities are standard electrical engineering rather than a manufacturer claim. The kWh definition is Accuenergy's own, and the gigajoule conversion follows from the SI definition of the watt as one joule per second.
Demand, and the interval it is averaged over
Billing demand is the highest average power over a fixed interval inside the billing period, so it takes a sustained load to set it and a momentary spike will not. The interval length is the part we cannot source for Ontario: no OEB or IESO page we reached states one, and Toronto Hydro's rate pages do not give it either, so this page records it as not stated rather than repeating the 15 minutes everyone assumes. Every Accuenergy meter in this catalogue lets you program the interval, and Siemens' MID-certified PAC2200 CLP variant records active energy quarter-hourly, so match the meter to whatever the bill actually uses.
Load factor
Load factor is average demand divided by peak demand across a period, expressed as a ratio or a percentage. A number near 1.0 means the site draws steadily and gets full value from the capacity it is paying for; a low number means it is paying for a peak it touches briefly. It is a standard utility-metering measure and no Ontario-specific source for it was found, so treat it as a general definition. It is also the fastest way to explain to a facility manager why one 20-minute event is on the invoice all month.
Meter multipliers, CT ratio times PT ratio
On a meter fed through instrument transformers, the raw register has to be multiplied by the CT ratio and, above roughly 600 V, the PT ratio to give true consumption. A meter reading 100 kWh behind a 200:5 CT, a multiplier of 40, represents 4,000 kWh. On the modern meters in this catalogue that multiplication is already done: the Acuvim II's register map publishes a primary mode returning the raw secondary value and a secondary mode applying the programmed ratios, so once the ratio is entered at commissioning every read is in true primary units. Confirm which mode a meter is in before anyone applies a multiplier by hand and doubles the reading.
Small customers under 50 kW sit on one of three OEB-set plans. Time-of-use runs at 9.8¢ off-peak, 15.7¢ mid-peak and 20.3¢ on-peak per kWh, with the prices flat across the year and only the clock hours moving between summer and winter. Ultra-low overnight prices the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. window at 3.9¢ and weekday 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 39.1¢, which is a ten-to-one spread and the reason a shift schedule is worth modelling. Tiered bills the first 1,000 kWh a month in winter, from 1 November to 30 April, or the first 600 kWh in summer, at 12.0¢ and everything above at 14.2¢, with small business on a flat 750 kWh threshold year round.
Toronto Hydro's business rate classes are General Service under 50 kW, General Service 50 to 999 kW, General Service 1,000 to 4,999 kW, and Large Use above 5,000 kW. Under 50 kW there is no separate demand charge and the bill is energy only. From 50 kW up the demand charge appears, and it is billed in kVA, not kW, with the distribution volumetric rate confirmed at $10.5170 per kVA per 30 days. That distinction matters when you specify a meter: a sub-meter that reports only kW will under-report billed demand on any load with a poor power factor, and the gap is exactly the reactive component.
IESO puts the split at 50 kW of monthly peak demand: above it, a business is billed the wholesale Ontario price plus Global Adjustment as separate line items rather than one blended rate. Global Adjustment covers new infrastructure, contracted supply and conservation programs, and for a Class A customer it is allocated by that customer's share of demand during the province's top five peak hours. Class B customers get it folded into their rate or billed as a separate line once Class A has settled.
GA is usually the largest single component of a commercial bill by dollar value, and no sub-meter can measure it, because it is a policy cost rather than a physical quantity. What a sub-meter can do is show you the demand during the hours that set it.
How electricity meters, sensors and gateways get their own supply, and which products use each option
Option
What it means
Where you meet it
Self-powered from the voltage inputs
The meter runs off the same phases it measures, so there is no separate supply to find. It also means the meter dies with the circuit, which is usually what you want on a sub-meter
Eastron SDM630-Modbus; Siemens 7KM PAC2200, which needs no auxiliary supply at all; most direct-connect DIN-rail meters
Wide-range control power
A separate supply across an AC and DC range, wired to its own protected source so the meter keeps logging through a downstream trip
Accuenergy Acuvim II at 100 to 415 Vac or 100 to 300 Vdc on the P1 option; AcuRev 1310 on the same range
Low-voltage auxiliary
24 VDC or similar at the instrument, which means a supply and a run of cable in the panel budget
Acuvim II P2 option at 20 to 60 Vdc; AcuLink 810 gateway at 24 VDC; Elkor WattsOn-Mark II at 12 to 30 VDC or 24 VAC; Carlo Gavazzi EM330 with the optional 100 to 240 V auxiliary
Harvested from the conductor
The sensor powers itself by induction from the current it is measuring, with a store to ride through a shutdown. Below a threshold current it has nothing to run on
Milesight CT10x and CT3xx, self-powered with about 12 hours of ride-through and an optional USB-C supplement for low-current circuits
Battery
A sealed lithium cell with a multi-year design life, which is what makes a wireless retrofit possible where no supply exists
Milesight EM300-DI pulse counter, 5 years on the standard 4000 mAh cell at a 10-minute reporting interval and 10 years on the 8000 mAh option
Accuracy class, billing approval and electrical safety are separate checks.
Electricity metering requirements
Use or work
Confirm
Billing
Measurement Canada approval, verification and sealing; CT approval is separate
Internal monitoring
Our reading: outside the billing trigger. Refer edge cases to Measurement Canada
Ontario tenant billing
Confirm OEB unit sub-meter provider licensing and applicable tenancy rules
Product approval
CSA or another recognized Canadian mark; CE alone does not qualify
Panel work
A Licensed Electrical Contractor handles the installation and ESA notification
Measurement Canada, CSA, OEB and ESA requirements
Measurement Canada, and the one condition that matters
Electricity sits under the same federal statute as gas. The Electricity and Gas Inspection Act defines a meter as any apparatus used for making measurements of, or obtaining the basis of a charge for, electricity or gas supplied to a purchaser, and section 9(1) says that where a contractor or purchaser intends to use a meter "for the purpose of obtaining the basis of a charge", it may not be put into service until it has been verified and sealed. Section 9(4) makes approval of type a precondition of that verification. The trigger is billing, not ownership, not accuracy and not size.
A sub-meter whose reading nobody is charged from is not obtaining the basis of a charge, so a feeder meter feeding a dashboard for the facility's own optimization sits outside section 9(1) as the statute reads. A sub-meter that invoices a tenant, a sub-tenant or a separate legal entity is squarely inside it and needs an approved type, verification, sealing and reverification on schedule. That is our reading of the text and not a Measurement Canada ruling on any particular installation, so put an edge case, such as billing a related but legally separate company, to Measurement Canada directly.
The specifications are the S-E series, and the CT has its own
Approval and installation run through Measurement Canada's S-E specifications. S-E-02 covers verification and reverification, S-E-03 installation and input connections, S-E-04 the installation requirements for multiple customer metering systems, which is the sub-metering and multi-tenant spec, S-E-06 approval of type for meters and auxiliary devices, S-E-08 standard installation drawings, S-E-09 approval of 80 mA and 100 mA class measuring current transformers, and S-E-10 the size of wires connecting meters to conventional instrument transformers. A provisional PS-E series covers newer technology, including electronic CTs and VTs at PS-E-13 through PS-E-16.
The one most people miss is S-E-07, approval of measuring instrument transformers. A CT or VT needs its own Measurement Canada approval, separate from the meter's approval of type, so an approved meter paired with an unapproved or wrong-class CT is not a compliant billing installation. Accuenergy's AcuCT S77 is the only CT in this catalogue with a stated Measurement Canada accuracy class, S-E-09 Class 0.15 at 80 and 100 mA.
Bulletin E-26 sets the reverification period by meter type, and the spread is wide enough to change which technology you specify for a billing point.
Reference facts
Check
As stated
Electromechanical, 1 or 1½ element, standard base, magnetic bearing
12 years initial, 10 subsequent.
Electromechanical, 1 or 1½ element, standard base, other bearing
6 years initial, 4 subsequent.
Electromechanical, 2, 2½ or 3 element, magnetic bearing
8 years initial, 6 subsequent.
Electromechanical, 2, 2½ or 3 element, other bearing
6 years initial, 4 subsequent.
Electromechanical, totalizing types
6 years initial, 6 subsequent.
Loss meters, A²-hour and V²-hour
6 years initial, 4 subsequent.
Electrical demand meters, electromechanical
6 years initial, 4 subsequent.
Electronic meters, energy function
6 years initial, 4 subsequent.
Electronic meters, energy function, qualified for a lengthened initial period
10 years initial, 8 subsequent.
Electronic meters, demand function
the same period as the corresponding energy function.
Instrument transformers and complete metering installations are reverified per the periods in their own governing specifications rather than a line in E-26's table, and we did not pull the CT interval, so check S-E-07 for it rather than assuming. Bulletin E-28 is the one that qualifies specific models for the lengthened 10-year initial period; the qualifying model list is worth reading before you assume the standard number applies.
Only a Measurement Canada inspector or an accredited meter verifier may verify, seal, reverify or reseal a meter, and a meter with a broken seal may not be put into or continued in service until one of those two has reverified and resealed it. Putting a meter into service contrary to section 9(1) is a specific offence under section 33(1)(c). Measurement Canada's own approvals search is the place to confirm a model's status, and we did not find a published approval number for any meter in this catalogue, so this page links the search tool rather than printing a number format we have not verified.
Revenue grade is not the same as Measurement Canada approved
"Revenue grade" is industry shorthand for an accuracy class considered good enough for billing, usually ANSI C12.20 Class 0.2 or 0.5 or IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5S. It is not a Measurement Canada term and it carries no legal weight by itself. A meter is lawful to bill from in Canada only once it has an approval of type under S-E-06 and has been verified and sealed, however good its datasheet is. Several meters in this catalogue carry European MID approval under EN 50470 instead, which is legal metrology for the EU and the UK and means nothing in Canada.
The OEB Unit Sub-Metering Code, and who needs a licence
Section 57(c.1) of the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 says nobody may "engage in unit sub-metering" unless licensed under Part V of the Act. The OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code, last revised 18 August 2025, sets out the minimum conditions a licensed unit sub-meter provider must meet when providing services on behalf of exempt distributors, and applies to all persons licensed under that section. The landlord or property owner, whom the Code calls the principal consumer, does not hold the licence: they contract with a licensed USMP who does.
The Code also leans directly on Measurement Canada rather than restating its own accuracy numbers. Section 2.4.1 requires a USMP to "comply with Measurement Canada standards as a minimum metering installation and measurement standard", and the Code's own technical requirements for the sub-meter, section 2.1.1, were revoked in 2010. Section 2.2.1 requires the building's principal meter to be an interval meter before sub-metering service can begin, and section 2.3 puts billing data through a documented validating, estimating and editing process that must be open to consumers, retailers, the Board and Measurement Canada. The two regulators are not an either-or.
Suite meters: O. Reg. 394/10, and what 389/10 actually is
Part VIII of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 is titled "Suite Meters and Apportionment of Utility Costs", and its regulation is O. Reg. 394/10. Section 137 governs a landlord converting a rental unit to individual electricity billing through a suite meter installed by a suite meter provider, with rules on interrupting supply, tenant written consent in a Board-approved form, a rent reduction and a complaint route to the Landlord and Tenant Board. Section 138 is a separate mechanism with no meter in it at all: a landlord of a building of six rental units or fewer may charge a tenant a share of a utility cost by written consent and formula, with a matching rent reduction.
O. Reg. 389/10 is a real and relevant regulation, and it is a different one. It is the general regulation under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010, which the Unit Sub-Metering Code calls the ECPA Regulation and uses to define "prescribed activity" and "prescribed property", the terms that decide which buildings a licensed USMP may serve. Both numbers belong on the table when somebody is planning tenant billing, and they are not interchangeable.
What does not apply to internal industrial sub-metering
The OEB's licensing net is built around billing an occupant of a prescribed property, and the concrete sourced examples are residential rental buildings and condominiums. A facility that sub-meters its own areas, cost centres or production lines without invoicing a legally separate tenant is not engaging in unit sub-metering in the sense the Act and Code target, and needs no USMP licence. That is the ordinary industrial case and the one most of this page is written for. We could not confirm the full list of property and activity types prescribed under O. Reg. 389/10, so a multi-tenant commercial plaza or industrial park planning real tenant billing should confirm both the OEB licensing question and the Measurement Canada trigger directly before committing.
ESA, the Ontario Electrical Safety Code, and who wires it
The Electrical Safety Authority administers the Ontario Electrical Safety Code, and its own guidance is that the only way to be sure electrical work is safe and legal is to hire a Licensed Electrical Contractor. That contractor holds an ECRA/ESA licence number, files the electrical notification of work with ESA, which is the permit, and the finished work is reviewed by an ESA inspector who issues a Certificate of Acceptance. ESA also warns that hiring an unlicensed electrician shifts liability onto you and can void an insurance claim linked to the work. Clamping a CT into a live panel or landing voltage-sense leads is that kind of work.
Ontario's Product Safety Regulation, O. Reg. 438/07, requires that before an electrical product is used, sold, displayed or advertised for sale in Ontario it must be approved by an accredited certification or evaluation agency, reinforced by Rule 2-024 of the Code. ESA's list of recognized marks includes CSA, cULus and UL, cETLus from Intertek, FM Approvals, NSF, TÜV Rheinland, TÜV SÜD, DEKRA, Element, SGS and Nemko. The CE mark is not on that list, so a meter bearing CE alone is not approved for installation here.
There is one exception worth knowing, and it is narrow. ESA's own list of exceptions to the product-approval requirement covers utility meters, described as revenue billing devices operated by Local Distribution Companies, because their accuracy is Measurement Canada's business rather than ESA's. That exemption does not reach a third-party sub-meter, CT, gateway or LoRaWAN node, which all need a recognized Canadian mark or an ESA field evaluation. We did not confirm the field-evaluation process, its timeline or its cost, so ask ESA directly for that.
Measurement category ratings, CAT II, III and IV, are defined in CSA C22.2 No. 61010-1 and IEC 61010-1, the harmonized safety standard for electrical measurement equipment. Both are paywalled, and neither the standard text nor an accessible secondary source with quotable thresholds could be retrieved, so this page publishes no CAT voltage or transient figures.
The general principle holds without them. The closer the equipment sits to the service entrance, the higher the category and voltage rating it needs, and CTs and voltage leads inside a main switchboard have to be rated for that location's real prospective fault current, which is a number from the datasheet and the installing electrician rather than a rule of thumb. The same goes for arc flash and PPE, governed here by CSA Z462 and also paywalled: have a licensed contractor assess the risk before anyone clamps a split-core CT onto a live conductor.
Class A, the ICI, and why peak demand is worth money
A Class A customer's Global Adjustment charge is set by a Peak Demand Factor, which IESO calculates from that customer's share of provincial demand during the top five peak hours of a 12-month base period running 1 May to 30 April, applied over the following adjustment period from 1 July to 30 June. Customers averaging more than 5 MW of monthly peak demand are enrolled automatically and must opt out by 15 June; 1 to 5 MW customers may opt in; and since April 2017 customers in NAICS 31, 32, 33 and 1114 averaging between 500 kW and 1 MW may opt in as well. A whole year of charges turns on five hours, which is a commercial reason to measure demand well that has nothing to do with any metering regulation.
Green Button is a consent mechanism, not an open feed. Download My Data is the customer exporting their own consumption, billing and account information; Connect My Data authorizes a named, pre-approved third party to receive it on an ongoing basis, and Toronto Hydro lets a customer manage and remove any such connection themselves. Nothing moves without the account holder acting, which means the paperwork sits with the client rather than with us, and it is worth starting that before the hardware conversation rather than after.
Choose a measuring method, then open its evidence.
Choose a measuring technology
Technology
Best for
Watch out
Utility revenue meter (socket-type / switchboard)
Master utility billing metering (installed by the LDC, not by Quantify)
A facility sub-meter feeding an IoT and telemetry platform is needed: a panel or DIN-rail power meter with a communications port is the practical fit, not a utility-style revenue meter
Utility revenue meter (socket-type / switchboard): evidence
Every meter here works the same way at heart. It samples voltage on each phase, samples current through a current transformer on each phase, multiplies the two and integrates the result. What separates the families is how many samples per cycle, how many circuits per chassis, what the voltage inputs will tolerate, and which of those numbers ever leaves the box. An Acuvim II takes 512 samples per electrical cycle and refreshes its Modbus registers every 100 ms; a basic DIN-rail meter gives you kWh and a handful of live values and nothing else.
Current transformers are the other half of the choice, and there the trade is accuracy against installability. A solid-core CT is a closed ring that the conductor has to be threaded through, which means a shutdown, and it holds the tightest classes: Accuenergy's AcuCT S125 and S220 are IEC 61869-2 Class 0.2. A split-core CT hinges open and clamps around a conductor that is already terminated, which is the retrofit answer, at a typical 1% on the same manufacturer's 333 mV line. A Rogowski coil is a flexible air-core loop with no iron to saturate, so it stays linear from 5 A to 50,000 A and wraps around busbar geometry no rigid window will fit, at IEC 61869-10 Class 0.5, and it needs an integrator to turn its raw output into a current.
Electricity meter and current transformer families compared on what they measure, current input, accuracy class as stated, install, signal and the main thing to watch for
Family
What it measures
Current input
Accuracy class, as stated
Install
Signal
Watch for
Utility revenue meter
kWh and demand for billing, time of use
Self-contained to its rated ampacity, or external CTs and PTs above it
ANSI C12.20 Class 0.2 or 0.5
Socket or switchboard, utility owned
The utility's own network
Not a customer-readable Modbus or BACnet source, and outside the facility's control
Panel and switchgear meter
Over 400 parameters on the Acuvim II: kWh, kW, kVA, kVAr, PF, per phase, THD, harmonics to the 63rd, demand
5 A, 1 A, 333 mV, Rogowski, or 80/100/200 mA
ANSI C12.20 Class 0.1 and IEC 62053-22 Class 0.1S (Acuvim II)
Panel cutout or DIN transducer, plus control power
Modbus RTU built in, with modules for Modbus TCP, BACnet, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, IEC 61850, MQTT
More capability than most sub-metering uses, and it needs its own supply
DIN-rail meter, CT operated
kWh, kW, kVA, kVAr, PF, per phase, demand
5 A, 1 A, 333 mV, Rogowski, or 80/100/200 mA (AcuRev 1310)
ANSI C12.20 Class 0.5 and IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5S
35 mm DIN rail, small footprint
RS-485 with Modbus RTU or BACnet MS/TP, optional pulse and relay
Fewer power-quality features than a panel meter
DIN-rail meter, direct connect
kWh and a basic live set; the SDM230 adds a maximum-demand register, the SDM72D-M does not
None; load current passes through the meter, 45 A on the SDM120, 100 A on the SDM630-Modbus, 65 A on the SDM630-TCP
MID EN 50470 on the Eastron line; no Measurement Canada approval confirmed
DIN rail, heavier gauge wiring because full load current lands on the terminals
Modbus RTU or TCP, pulse, or M-Bus depending on the variant
The direct-connect ceiling is well below a typical service, and MID is a European approval, not a Canadian one
Multi-circuit sub-meter
Per-circuit kWh, kW and PF across one chassis
333 mV, 80/100 mA or Rogowski on the AcuRev 2100; split-core, solid-core and Rogowski on the PowerScout FLEX
ANSI C12.20 Class 0.5 and IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5S (AcuRev 2100); ANSI C12.20 Class 0.2 (PowerScout HD)
DIN rail or wall enclosure, one CT and lead pair per channel
Modbus RTU and BACnet MS/TP standard, Ethernet and Modbus TCP on the option module
The AcuRev 2100 cannot mix split-core and Rogowski on one chassis, and one failure takes every circuit on it
LoRaWAN CT sensor
RMS current and cumulative amp-hours only; kWh is computed from a typed-in voltage and power factor
Its own integral clamp: 100 A and 250 A through a 16 mm hole, 500 A through 36.5 mm, 1000 A through 51 mm on the three-channel CT310
±1% above 5 A RMS, ±3% at or below 5 A
Clamps on live, self-powered by induction from the conductor, IP30 so indoors only
LoRaWAN Class A
No voltage measurement at all, so the kWh figure is an estimate and should never be presented as metered energy
Solid-core CT
Current only; it produces no kWh on its own
Output 5 A, 1 A, 80/100 mA or 333 mV
IEC 61869-2 Class 0.2 (AcuCT S125 and S220); Measurement Canada S-E-09 Class 0.15 at 80/100 mA on the AcuCT S77
Conductor must be disconnected and threaded through; windows of 32.0 mm and 57.0 mm
None; it feeds a meter
Needs a shutdown, and a 5 A output needs a shorting block before anything downstream is opened
Split-core CT
Current only
Output 5 A, 1 A or 333 mV
1.0% on the Accuenergy 333 mV line; IEC 61869-2 Class 0.5 on select AcuCT R models
Clamps around a terminated conductor; windows of 19.05, 31.75, 50.8 mm and a 76 by 127 mm busbar slot
None; it feeds a meter
A mating seam that wears, and lower accuracy than solid-core
Rogowski coil
Current only, as a dI/dt signal that has to be integrated
Direct low-mV output, or an integrator kit to 5 A, 333 mV, 4-20 mA, 0-5 V or 0-10 V
IEC 61869-10 Class 0.5 and IEEE C57.13 Class 0.6 (AcuCT Flex)
Wraps around anything; coil inner sizes 106, 178, 271 and 369 mm, 5 A to 50,000 A, 10 Hz to 20 kHz
None; it feeds a meter or an integrator
Position sensitive, and CCS publishes ±1.5% to ±5.0% conductor-position error on its own CTRC line
Power quality, as a meter capability
THD, individual harmonics, sag and swell capture on top of energy and demand
Same inputs as the panel meter it sits on
IEC 61000-4-30 Class S on the Acuvim II; Class A, third-party certified, on the Acuvim 3
Panel, with control power and enough memory for event logs
Modbus, BACnet, Ethernet, and COMTRADE waveform export on the Acuvim 3
Well beyond what a sub-metering job needs, and priced that way
Gateway
Nothing; it reads other devices
None
Not applicable
DIN rail or wall, 24 VDC
Reads Modbus RTU and TCP, BACnet MS/TP and IP, SunSpec, M-Bus and pulse counters; publishes Modbus TCP, BACnet IP, SNMP, HTTP or HTTPS, FTP or sFTP, and MQTT
Device counts are per port: 32 over Ethernet, 32 over RS-485, 32 more over USB on the AcuLink 810
Eight meters to start: favourites, then fuller records. Filter, search or show all; compare up to three.
How to read the catalogue
Four things are worth knowing before you read a row. The Category rail separates a meter from a current transformer, from a gateway, from an accessory, and those buy very differently: a CT is a component with no output of its own, and a gateway measures nothing at all. The Voltage rail bands entries by the service they can sit on, and the CT input rail by what the meter's current terminals accept, which is the pairing that most often goes wrong when a meter and its CTs are ordered from different places.
The MC approved chip means Measurement Canada has approved that model's type, which matters only when the reading bills somebody. Most rows say unknown, and that is honest rather than lazy: Accuenergy states approval for the AcuRev 1312 configuration and rates the AcuCT S77 to specification S-E-09, and no approval number was published on any page we could reach for any manufacturer in this catalogue. Price bands are comparative judgements by product class, because none of these manufacturers publish list prices for this equipment.
Search, filtering and comparison need JavaScript. All catalogue rows and full specifications are readable below.
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61 meters, CTs and gateways
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Manufacturer
Model
Technology
Voltage
CT input
Outputs
Accuracy
MC approved
Price
Quantify fit
Details
Accuenergy
Acuvim IIseries (base / IIR / IIW)
Utility revenue meter
120/208 V, 120/240 V, 277/480 V, 347/600 V
5 A secondary, 1 A secondary, 333 mV, Rogowski, mA (80 / 100 / 200)
Accuenergy is in Toronto and sells direct, with no third-party Canadian distributor on its own site, which makes it the shortest path in this catalogue. Carlo Gavazzi runs its own Canadian subsidiary, Carlo Gavazzi Canada Inc. at 104-2430 Meadowpine Boulevard in Mississauga, so its meters are not a component-distributor-only proposition. Elkor Technologies sells direct from 6 Bainard Street in London, Ontario, by phone or its own contact form, with no distributor network advertised.
For Schneider Electric, both Guillevin and Nedco carry the brand: Guillevin links a Schneider Product Selector and cross-reference tool from its own homepage and lists real PowerLogic SKUs, including the PM5330, PM5340, PM5560, PM5563, PM8240, PM8244, ION9000 and the EM3500 DIN-rail series; Nedco runs a dedicated Schneider microsite whose product list we could not read. Franklin Empire states on its own about page that it is the Exclusive Industrial Distributor for Siemens automation and industrial products in Quebec and most of Ontario, backed by a linked exclusivity letter, but its navigation lists Siemens only under process instrumentation and its metering category is meter sockets rather than digital power meters, so PAC availability there is not confirmed. No Schneider presence appears anywhere in Franklin Empire's navigation.
Several routes people expect could not be checked. Graybar Canada, Gerrie Electric, Digi-Key Canada and RobotShop returned bot-challenge pages to every automated request; Mouser Canada and Franklin Empire's own product search return an empty shell without JavaScript; and AutomationDirect's entire shopping catalogue redirects to a login. None of that is evidence about what they stock, only that we could not read it, so call before you plan around any of them. Milesight lists no Canadian partner on its own channel-partner locator, and Dragino names RobotShop as its Canada distributor on its own buy page.
Canadian-headquartered manufacturer. Several meters (e.g. AcuRev 1312, AcuCT S77) carry Measurement Canada approval or an MC-referenced accuracy standard (S-E-09); exact approval numbers were not published on the pages checked in this pass beyond AE-2615 for the AcuCT C converter accessory (not part of this catalogue).
Accuenergy direct (online store)nationalManufacturer is Toronto-based and sells direct; product pages also reference an authorized reseller network, but no single Canada-wide distributor list page was found in this pass.
Power and energy meters, current transformers, and data acquisition gateways for revenue metering, sub-metering and power quality
Product datasheets and images are served from a stable, predictable path (fileadmin/images/PIM/DATASHEET/ENG/<MODEL>_DS_ENG.pdf and .../PIM/WEB/<MODEL>_PIC.png) once the exact model code is known; the category-listing pages are JavaScript-rendered and do not expose product links to a plain fetch, so individual product-detail URLs (e.g. /en-ca/product/EM111DINAV81XO1PFA) had to be found via other means.
Carlo Gavazzi Canada (gavazziautomation.com/en-ca)nationalManufacturer's own Canadian-language storefront and support site with per-model "Buy" links; specific third-party Canadian electrical distributors were not enumerated in this pass.
DIN-rail and panel energy meters and analysers, current transformers and automation components
ccontrolsys.com (the historical domain) now returns an expired-certificate error; the brand has moved to ctlsys.com, and every WattNode product page there 301-redirects to aimdynamics.com, a distributor whose spec pages list both 'Socomec' and 'Continental Control Systems' as manufacturer with a new Socomec part number alongside the legacy CCS one. This appears to be a corporate acquisition and rebrand, not a name coincidence. Because CHARTER §2 separately lists Socomec (Diris) as its own catalogue brand, watch for double-counting the WattNode line under a future 'socomec' manufacturer entry: recommend keeping WattNode under this own id since the part numbering, documentation and physical branding on the box are still WattNode-identified.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
The WattNode line of compact DIN-mount energy meters (Modbus, Pulse, BACnet, Wide-Range variants).
No dedicated Canadian entity or distributor was confirmed in this pass; dentinstruments.com sells direct via its own shop with US list pricing shown (excludes duties and taxes for international buyers). Product naming has partly moved to a newer 'PowerScout FLEX' line alongside the HD line Tom named; the HD models (12/24/48) remain current, live products.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Revenue-grade multi-circuit power submeters (PowerScout HD series) and portable power-quality/M&V data loggers (ELITEpro series).
No dedicated Canadian entity or distributor was found. A full crawl of dragino.com's product catalogue (18 categories, ~90 SKUs) confirmed no CT and energy product exists under the Dragino brand, correcting the CHARTER §2 assumption that 'Dragino LoRaWAN CT meters' are a real, catalogue-able product line.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
LoRaWAN/NB-IoT end nodes, gateways and sensors (agriculture, level, door and leak, vibration, tracking). Does NOT make a current-transformer or energy-meter product; its RS485-LN Modbus-to-LoRaWAN converter is the closest relevant product, and it is a generic bridge, not an energy meter.
unknown; no dedicated Canadian entity or distributor page found in this pass
Researched via Eastron Europe Limited (Basildon, UK / Dublin, Ireland), the manufacturer's EMEA distribution and technical-support arm; full datasheets and Modbus register maps sit behind a free account login on that site, so most links below point to the public product page rather than a PDF. North American availability is understood to run through general electrical and automation distributors rather than a dedicated Eastron Canada storefront; none was independently confirmed in this pass.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Low-cost single- and three-phase DIN-rail energy meters (SDM range) with direct-connect or CT-operated variants, Modbus/M-Bus/pulse outputs
eGauge's storefront (store.egauge.net) is a JS-rendered NetSuite commerce site that returns no usable static content to automated fetch; the manufacturer's own PDF datasheets (egauge.net/media/support/docs/) fetch cleanly and were used as the source instead. ICES-003 Class B certification (the Canadian EMC standard) is explicitly stated on the datasheet, but no dedicated Canadian entity or distributor was confirmed.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Multi-channel (up to 30-port) energy meters and data loggers marketed as 'eGauge Pro' (EG40xx/EG42xx), with the broadest protocol export list researched in this pass (Modbus RTU/TCP, BACnet/IP, BACnet MS/TP, CSV, XML, JSON).
electroind.com was fully reachable this session via direct curl (no bot-management block encountered) and yielded full product pages plus downloadable PDF brochures for all four target models. No Canadian distributor was confirmed this session; EIG's site presents itself as selling direct. Given EIG's relationship to Hubbell, a Hubbell-brand Canadian distributor is worth checking in a follow-up pass.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Revenue-grade and multifunction power and energy meters (Shark 100/200/250, Shark MP200 multipoint system) for utility, industrial and submetering applications. Part of the Hubbell group (contact email domain hubbell.com on current brochures).
CORRECTION to CHARTER §2: Elkor's own contact information gives its address as London, Ontario, not Calgary. Also, 'WattsOn-1100' (named in CHARTER §2) was not found on Elkor's current site; only 'WattsOn-Mark II' and the 'WattsOn-Mark II Meter Kit' are confirmed live products.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Precision energy meters (WattsOn-Mark II) for revenue and sub-metering, Modbus RTU/BACnet MS/TP/Ethernet output.
No dedicated Canadian entity or distributor was confirmed in this research pass. Milesight's own product-listing pages return HTTP 403 to automated fetches (Cloudflare-style bot protection); individual product pages and Milesight's own GitHub payload-decoder repository (github.com/Milesight-IoT/SensorDecoders) were reachable and used as the primary sources instead.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
LoRaWAN IoT sensors and controllers, including current-transformer sensors and Modbus-to-LoRaWAN controllers; not a revenue-metering or ANSI/IEC-certified energy-meter manufacturer.
se.com returned an HTTP 403 (Akamai bot-management) to every direct fetch attempt this session (curl, python urllib, and the WebFetch tool all blocked or reduced to a client-side-rendered shell with no product data); a browser-permission gate also blocked the in-session Chrome tool. All Schneider data in this pass therefore comes from a Canadian distributor's product pages (Guillevin), not se.com directly. A follow-up pass should target se.com from a residential or non-datacenter IP or with the required browser-extension site permission granted.
Guillevin InternationalnationalConfirmed stocking PowerLogic PM5100/PM5300/PM5500/PM8000, ION9000 and PowerLogic EM3500 SKUs with full product-description pages; live pricing sits behind a trade-account login.
Electrical distribution, industrial automation and energy management, including the PowerLogic power-meter line (PM2000/5000/8000, ION9000) and PowerLogic EM3500 DIN-rail submeters.
The main siemens.com storefront or portal (sieportal.siemens.com, mall.industry.siemens.com) is a client-rendered app that returned only a 'Loading...' shell to every fetch tool tried and returned HTTP 403/404 to direct curl requests for most deep product URLs. However, siemens.com's static marketing page for the SENTRON measuring-device family (siemens.com/en-us/products/sentron/sentron-measuring-devices/) DID load with real content, as did a current (2025) PDF 'Quick Selection Guide' hosted on Siemens' assets.new.siemens.com CDN, and both were used as the source for every Siemens entry in this pass. No Canadian distributor carrying SENTRON PAC was found this session (Guillevin's catalogue, the only distributor search reached, has none).
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
SENTRON brand: DIN-rail and panel measuring devices (7KM PAC and 7KT PAC series) for low-voltage energy transparency, alongside its much larger automation and electrification portfolio.
socomec.com serves an identical 'Select your country' redirect shell (HTTP 200, but zero product content, requires JavaScript) to every URL path on the domain regardless of the path requested, for every fetch method tried this session (curl with a browser user agent, python urllib, WebFetch). The regional US site it points to (socomec.us) returned a hard HTTP 403 from Cloudflare to both curl and WebFetch. The only Socomec material recovered this session came from the Wayback Machine's archive of old socomec.com file-server PDFs (a Modbus register-map document and a Profibus DPV1 configuration manual for DIRIS A-40, both dated 2019-2020 captures) and one archived product photo. No electrical specifications (voltage range, current input, accuracy class) were recoverable this session. This is the clearest gap in this research pass and should be the first target of a follow-up (ideally from a non-datacenter IP, or via the Chrome browser tool once socomec.com is added to its site-permission allowlist).
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
Critical power, energy efficiency and low-voltage electrical safety, including the DIRIS A-series and Countis E-series power and energy meters and the DIRIS Digiware modular power-monitoring system.
veris.com actively blocks automated fetches (Akamai WAF returning 'Access Denied' with a reference number on every path tried, home page included). Worked around in this pass via the Wayback Machine's cached copies of Veris's own PDF datasheets and press releases (URLs and snapshot timestamps recorded in the research note and in each meter's verified.sources). No dedicated Canadian entity or distributor was confirmed.
sells direct, no Canadian distributor found
DIN-rail and multi-circuit or branch-circuit power and energy meters (E50, E51, E31, E34 and others), plus a broad line of building-automation sensors.
What to send an electrician or a distributor
Quantify's own checklist, not a manufacturer or standards document. Send all eight and the quote comes back right the first time.
Reference facts
Check
As stated
Service voltage and phase configuration
For example 120/208 V three phase four wire, 347/600 V three phase three wire, or 120/240 V split phase. This rules models out faster than anything else on the list.
Breaker or service amp rating
The main breaker or fuse size at the panel or service entrance being monitored, because the CT is sized to that and not to the conductor.
Conductor size or bus bar dimensions
at the point the CT will clamp, which sets the window diameter needed. Measure it rather than reading it off a drawing.
Number of circuits
One main feed, or a panel with many branch circuits, which is the difference between a single meter and a multi-circuit chassis.
Revenue grade or monitoring only
Whether the reading has to be billing-accurate and Measurement Canada approved, or is for internal energy management. Say which, because the answer changes the price band.
Output signal needed
Read-only Modbus RTU or TCP, BACnet, pulse with the pulse weight, or LoRaWAN. Confirm the pulse weight the meter is actually programmed to rather than the factory default.
Mounting
DIN rail, panel door, meter socket, or clamp-on, and whether there is panel space and control power for it.
CT type constraint
Solid core needs the conductor disconnected and threaded through; split core clamps around a live conductor; a Rogowski coil fits irregular or very large bus shapes. Say whether a shutdown is possible, because that is the constraint that decides it.
Glossary · 84 terms
333 mV CT
A split-core current transformer with the burden resistor built in, producing a safe, low millivolt-range analog output proportional to current rather than a scaled current signal. Because it is voltage-output, it does not develop a hazardous open-circuit voltage the way a 5A/1A secondary CT does, and does not need a shorting block.
See also CT (current transformer), CT shorting block
Accredited meter verifier
A person accredited by Measurement Canada's director, under section 10 of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act, to verify, seal, reverify and reseal electricity (or gas) meters. Only an accredited meter verifier or a Measurement Canada inspector may legally verify, seal, reverify or reseal a meter.
See also Verification (Measurement Canada), Reverification period, Seal
Accuracy class
A standardized rating of a meter's or CT's maximum allowed measurement error, defined by standards such as ANSI C12.20 (for meters) or IEC 61869 (for instrument transformers). A lower class number means tighter accuracy.
See also Revenue meter, Current transformer (CT)
Apparent power
The vector combination of real and reactive power, measured in volt-amperes/kilovolt-amperes (kVA). Equal to voltage multiplied by current, without regard to phase angle.
See also kVA (kilovolt-ampere), Power factor (PF), Real power
Apportionment of utility costs
A separate, meter-free mechanism under section 138 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006: a landlord of a building of six rental units or fewer may, with written tenant consent, charge a tenant a portion of a utility's cost under prescribed rules and a matching rent reduction, without installing any meter.
See also Suite meter
Approval of type
Measurement Canada's process (under specification S-E-06 for meters and S-E-07 for instrument transformers) for approving a specific design or model of electricity metering device or CT/VT before any unit of that design can be verified and put into service for billing. A precondition to verification, not a substitute for it.
See also Verification (Measurement Canada), S-E specifications, Instrument transformer
BACnet
A vendor-neutral communication standard for building automation and control equipment, allowing meters, controllers and other devices from different manufacturers to interoperate on one network.
See also BACnet/IP, BACnet MS/TP
BACnet MS/TP
A BACnet network variant carried over RS-485 serial wiring, common on building-automation devices that don't have an Ethernet port.
See also BACnet/IP, BACnet
BACnet/IP
A BACnet network variant carried over Ethernet, used where a meter or gateway is on the building's IP network.
See also BACnet MS/TP, BACnet
Burden
The load (in VA or ohms) that a current transformer's secondary circuit presents to it: the meter and any wiring between the CT and the meter. Exceeding a CT's rated burden degrades its accuracy.
See also Current transformer (CT), Accuracy class
Class A / Class B (Global Adjustment)
IESO customer classes for Global Adjustment billing. Class A customers (over 5 MW average monthly peak demand automatically, 1-5 MW by opt-in, or 500 kW-1 MW for select manufacturing NAICS codes) pay Global Adjustment based on their Peak Demand Factor: their percentage contribution to Ontario's top five system peak demand hours in a 12-month base period. Class B customers pay Global Adjustment on a volumetric (per-kWh) basis instead.
See also Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI), Peak Demand Factor (PDF)
Class A customer
An Ontario electricity customer (typically an industrial or larger commercial account) that participates in the Industrial Conservation Initiative, billed Global Adjustment based on its share of Ontario's top five annual peak-demand hours rather than a flat per-kWh allocation.
See also Class B customer, Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI), Global Adjustment (GA)
Class B customer
An Ontario electricity customer: residential, small business, or a Class A-eligible customer that doesn't opt in, that pays Global Adjustment folded into their TOU or tiered rate or as a separate line item, rather than based on the ICI's coincident-peak method.
See also Class A customer, Global Adjustment (GA)
IESO's published list of meter models pre-vetted as acceptable for use in registered revenue metering installations under the IESO-administered wholesale electricity market.
See also Metering Service Provider (MSP)
Connect My Data (CMD)
The Green Button function that lets a customer authorize an approved third-party application to receive their utility interval data on an ongoing, automated basis, revocable at any time.
See also Green Button, Download My Data
CT (current transformer)
A sensor that reduces a conductor's current to a smaller, safe signal a meter can read: either a scaled current (5A or 1A secondary), a millivolt signal (333 mV output, with the burden resistor built in), or a flexible Rogowski coil.
See also CT shorting block, 333 mV CT, Rogowski coil
CT ratio
The scaling relationship between a CT's primary current (the conductor being measured) and its secondary output (e.g. 400:5 meaning 400 A primary produces 5 A secondary). On modern electronic meters this ratio is programmed in once at commissioning, and every reading (and any pulse output derived from it) is then automatically scaled to the true primary-side value.
See also CT (current transformer), pulse weight
CT shorting block
A terminal block wired in series with a current-output (5A or 1A secondary) CT so its secondary can be shorted before a meter or relay is disconnected. Opening a live current-output CT's secondary under load can develop a hazardous voltage; shorting it first keeps the current path complete and safe. Not required on 333 mV (voltage-output) CTs.
See also CT (current transformer), 333 mV CT
Current transformer (CT)
A device that steps down a large current in a conductor to a small, safely measurable current (or voltage) signal for a meter, without breaking the main circuit's insulation rating.
See also CT ratio, Split-core CT, Solid-core CT, Rogowski coil
Current-only estimate (LoRaWAN CT energy)
An 'energy consumption' figure calculated by a current-only LoRaWAN CT sensor as (measured amp-hours) x (a fixed, user-entered voltage) x (a fixed, user-entered power factor). Because voltage and power factor are constants typed in at setup rather than measured, the resulting kWh figure will not track a real facility's actual PF or voltage fluctuation the way a true power meter does.
See also LoRaWAN-native CT meter
Current-only sensor
A device that measures current (amps) only, without a voltage input, and so cannot directly compute real power (kW) or energy (kWh): only apparent current draw. Useful for simple on/off or relative-load monitoring, not for billing-grade energy data.
See also Sub-meter, Current transformer (CT)
Demand
The highest average power drawn over a defined billing interval within a period, not an instantaneous reading. Utilities bill demand-class customers for their peak demand, in kW or kVA depending on the tariff.
See also Demand interval, Load factor, kW (kilowatt)
Demand interval
The length of time over which demand is averaged for billing purposes (commonly 15 or 30 minutes in North American utility practice). The exact interval length used by a given Ontario LDC should be confirmed with that utility.
See also Demand, Coincident peak
Download My Data (DMD)
The Green Button function that lets a customer manually export their own historical usage data, typically as a one-time download in a standardized format.
See also Green Button, Connect My Data
Field evaluation
ESA's process for approving electrical equipment that lacks a recognized Canadian certification mark, as an alternative path to a standard certification mark before the equipment can be legally used or sold in Ontario.
See also Recognized approval mark
Global Adjustment (GA)
A charge on Ontario electricity bills covering the cost of new electricity infrastructure, contracted generation rates, and conservation programs. For Class A customers it is billed based on their share of Ontario's top five system peak-demand hours in a year; for Class B customers it is folded into their TOU or tiered rate or shown as a separate line item.
See also Class A customer, Class B customer, Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI)
Green Button
An Ontario/North American standard letting a utility customer either manually download their own historical usage data (Download My Data) or authorize an approved third-party application to receive their ongoing interval data automatically (Connect My Data). Ontario's OEB mandates it for rate-regulated electricity and gas utilities; not every local utility's implementation, interval granularity or data lag was independently confirmed for this page; check with the specific utility.
See also Download My Data, Connect My Data
Harmonics
Distortions of the ideal 50/60 Hz sine wave caused by non-linear loads (variable-frequency drives, LED drivers, switch-mode power supplies), present at multiples of the fundamental frequency. Some power-quality meters report harmonic content per phase.
See also THD (Total Harmonic Distortion)
Holding register
A block of Modbus memory that, by the protocol's own naming, can be read or written. Many meters store their energy accumulators (kWh totals) in holding registers so a technician can reset them; Quantify's gateway reads these registers but is configured to never write to them.
See also Modbus RTU, input register, read-only
IESO settlement metering
Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator collects five-minute interval data from revenue meters at roughly 1,800 metering installations for wholesale market settlement. This is a separate, market-participant-scale system (large generators and loads transacting directly in the IESO market), not the same as an LDC's Green Button service most commercial customers would use.
See also Green Button
Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI)
Ontario's program allowing large electricity consumers to reduce their Global Adjustment costs by managing (reducing) their demand during Ontario's system peak hours. Participation and cost allocation depend on accurate demand measurement, making metering accuracy commercially significant independent of any regulatory metering requirement.
See also Class A / Class B (Global Adjustment), Peak Demand Factor (PDF)
Input register
A block of Modbus memory that is read-only by protocol convention, typically used for live measurements such as voltage, current and power that a technician has no reason to overwrite.
See also holding register, Modbus RTU
Instrument transformer
A current transformer (CT) or voltage transformer (VT) that scales a high current or voltage down to a level a meter can safely measure. Requires its own Measurement Canada approval of type (specification S-E-07 for conventional CTs/VTs, or the PS-E-13 through PS-E-16 series for electronic current and voltage transformers), separate from the meter's own approval.
See also S-E specifications, Approval of type
kVA (kilovolt-ampere)
A unit of apparent power: the combination of real and reactive power that the wiring and transformer actually have to carry. kVA is always equal to or greater than kW for the same load.
See also Power factor (PF), kVAr, Apparent power
kVAh
Apparent energy: the time-integral of kVA, analogous to how kWh is the time-integral of kW. Appears on a small number of utility tariffs but is not common on standard Ontario retail bills.
See also kWh (kilowatt-hour), kVA (kilovolt-ampere)
kVAr (kilovolt-ampere reactive)
A unit of reactive power: power that oscillates between source and load (typically from motors, transformers and ballasts) without doing net work. It does not appear on an energy bill directly but does affect kVA and power factor.
See also Power factor (PF), kVA (kilovolt-ampere), Reactive power
kW (kilowatt)
A unit of real (active) power: the rate at which work is actually being done. 1 kW = 1,000 watts. Distinct from kWh, which is kW sustained over time.
See also kWh (kilowatt-hour), Demand, Real power
kWh (kilowatt-hour)
The standard unit of electrical energy, equal to 1 kilowatt of power sustained for one hour. It is the time-integral of kW: what a utility bills you for and what an energy meter's main register accumulates.
See also kW (kilowatt), MWh, Demand
Lengthened initial reverification period (LIRP)
An extended first reverification interval (10 years instead of the standard 6), granted to specific electricity meter models that Measurement Canada has separately qualified under bulletin E-28.
See also Reverification period
Licensed Electrical Contractor (LEC)
In Ontario, the Electrical Safety Authority requires electrical wiring work, including CT and voltage-tap wiring at a live panel, to be performed by a Licensed Electrical Contractor, who files an electrical notification and permit for the work. Using an unlicensed electrician can void insurance coverage on the work.
See also CT shorting block
Load factor
The ratio of average demand to peak demand over a period, expressed as a percentage. A high load factor means steady, efficient use of billed capacity; a low load factor means paying for peak capacity used only briefly.
See also Demand, Coincident peak
LoRaWAN
A long-range, low-power wireless networking protocol used either natively by CT meters that transmit readings directly over LoRaWAN, or by a separate pulse-counter node that receives a meter's pulse output and forwards it wirelessly.
See also Pulse output, Current transformer (CT)
LoRaWAN pulse counter
A battery-powered LoRaWAN device that counts contact closures from a meter's pulse output and reports the running total wirelessly. Quantify's example device accepts up to 2000 pulses per second, far more headroom than a typical electrical service's pulse rate requires.
See also pulse output (kWh)
LoRaWAN-native CT meter
A current transformer with a built-in LoRaWAN radio that reports directly to a network server, no separate meter or gateway needed. Some products in this category (such as Milesight's CT10x/CT3xx) measure current only; any 'kWh' figure they report is a configured estimate from a fixed, manually entered voltage and power factor, not a true measured energy value.
See also current-only estimate, CT (current transformer)
Meter multiplier
The factor (CT ratio × PT ratio) that a raw meter register reading must be multiplied by to get the true kWh/kW value, on meters that are fed through instrument transformers rather than measuring line current and voltage directly.
See also CT ratio, Potential transformer (PT)
Metering Service Provider (MSP)
Under IESO market rules (Chapter 0.6), an organization that installs, registers and maintains revenue metering installations for market participants in Ontario's IESO-administered wholesale electricity market. Distinct from an OEB-licensed Unit Sub-Meter Provider, which serves retail tenant billing rather than wholesale market settlement.
See also Conforming Meter List
Modbus RTU
A serial communication protocol carried over RS-485 two-wire wiring. A master (Quantify's gateway) polls each meter by address (1-247) and reads its registers with function codes 03 (Read Holding Registers) or 04 (Read Input Registers). Quantify's gateways are configured to only ever issue those read commands, never a write.
See also Modbus TCP, RS-485, holding register, read-only
Modbus TCP
The same Modbus register model as Modbus RTU, carried over Ethernet instead of RS-485. Used where a meter or gateway already has a network port; the read and write function codes and register addresses work the same way.
See also Modbus RTU
MWh (megawatt-hour)
1,000 kWh. Used for larger facilities or when summarizing a full site's consumption rather than a single circuit.
See also kWh (kilowatt-hour)
Neutral conductor
The conductor that provides a return path and reference voltage in a 3-wire or 4-wire electrical system; its presence or absence determines which phase configuration and which meter wiring diagram applies.
See also Phase configuration
Peak Demand Factor (PDF)
A Class A customer's percentage contribution to Ontario's electricity demand during the top five system peak hours of a 12-month base period (May 1-April 30), used to calculate that customer's Global Adjustment charges for the following 12-month adjustment period.
See also Class A / Class B (Global Adjustment), Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI)
Phase configuration
The number of energized conductors and phases a service or circuit uses, commonly notated 1P2W (single-phase, 2-wire), 1P3W (single-phase, 3-wire/split-phase), 3P3W (three-phase, 3-wire, no neutral) or 3P4W (three-phase, 4-wire, with neutral). A meter must support the specific configuration it will be wired into.
See also Service voltage, Neutral conductor
Potential transformer (PT) / Voltage transformer (VT)
A transformer that steps down a high system voltage to a low, safely measurable voltage for a meter's voltage inputs: used on higher-voltage services where connecting line voltage directly to a meter would be unsafe.
See also CT ratio, Meter multiplier
Power factor (PF)
The ratio of real power to apparent power (PF = kW ÷ kVA), expressed from 0 to 1 or as a percentage. A low power factor means a load draws more current than its real-power use alone would require, which can add to demand charges billed in kVA.
See also kW (kilowatt), kVA (kilovolt-ampere), kVAr
Principal consumer
In the OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code, the exempt distributor or the person (typically the landlord or property owner) authorized under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010 regulation to retain a unit sub-meter provider for a prescribed property. The principal consumer does not need to hold an OEB licence themselves: the USMP they hire holds the licence.
See also Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP), Principal meter
Principal meter
The meter controlled by the licensed electricity distributor and used to settle the building's own ("principal") bill with the principal consumer. The OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code requires the principal meter to be an interval meter before unit sub-metering services can begin. Distinct from the individual unit sub-meters installed downstream.
See also Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP), Principal consumer
Product Safety Regulation (O. Reg. 438/07)
Ontario's electrical product safety regulation, administered by the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA), requiring a recognized certification or evaluation agency's approval before an electrical product can be used, sold, displayed or advertised in Ontario. Utility revenue meters operated by local distribution companies are specifically exempted, since their accuracy is separately governed by Measurement Canada.
See also Recognized approval mark
Pulse output
A meter output that emits one electrical pulse per fixed increment of energy (e.g. 1 Wh or 10 Wh per pulse), which an external pulse counter or LoRaWAN pulse-counter node can tally into a kWh total.
See also Pulse weight, LoRaWAN
Pulse output (kWh)
A contact closure (dry-contact or open-collector) that fires once per fixed amount of energy, called the pulse weight (e.g. 1 Wh, 100 Wh, 1 kWh per pulse). A pulse output is an energy accumulator only; it cannot report demand (kW) or power factor.
See also pulse weight, LoRaWAN pulse counter
Pulse weight
The amount of energy one pulse represents (for example, 1 Wh or 100 Wh per pulse), set at the meter. On modern electronic meters with a programmed CT ratio, the pulse weight already reflects true primary-side energy; on older fixed-ratio meters, a downstream multiplication by the CT ratio may be needed.
See also pulse output (kWh), CT ratio
Reactive power
Power associated with energy storage in a circuit's magnetic and electric fields (inductors and capacitors) rather than power consumed doing work. Measured in kVAr.
See also kVAr, Power factor (PF)
Read-only (Quantify's Modbus rule)
Quantify's gateways issue only Modbus read function codes (03 Read Holding Registers, 04 Read Input Registers) to a customer's meter; never a write (05/06/15/16), even on registers the meter itself allows to be written. This is an operating policy Quantify applies, not a limitation the Modbus protocol itself enforces.
See also Modbus RTU, holding register
A certification mark (CSA, cULus, cETLus, FM Approvals, NSF, TUV Rheinland, TUV SUD and others recognized by Ontario's Electrical Safety Authority) required on an electrical product before it can be used, sold, displayed or advertised in Ontario under the Product Safety Regulation (O. Reg. 438/07). A CE mark alone is not a recognized mark in Ontario.
See also Product Safety Regulation (O. Reg. 438/07), Field evaluation
Revenue grade
An industry and marketing term implying a meter's accuracy class is suitable for billing purposes (commonly ANSI C12.20 0.2 or 0.5, or IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5S). It is not a Measurement Canada term and carries no legal weight on its own: a "revenue-grade" meter that has not been Measurement Canada approved, verified and sealed cannot lawfully be the basis of a charge to anyone in Canada.
See also Measurement Canada approval, Verification (Measurement Canada)
Revenue meter
A meter accurate and approved to a standard (such as ANSI C12.20 or, in Canada, a Measurement Canada notice of approval) suitable for billing purposes, as opposed to a meter intended only for internal monitoring.
See also Sub-meter, Accuracy class, Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP)
Reverification period
The maximum interval, set by Measurement Canada bulletin E-26, before an in-service electricity meter must be re-tested and re-sealed. Periods vary by meter type and technology: electromechanical meters range roughly 6 to 12 years initial (4 to 10 years subsequent) depending on element count and bearing type; electronic meters are typically 6 years initial (4 years subsequent), or 10 years initial (8 years subsequent) if the model qualifies for a lengthened initial reverification period.
See also Lengthened initial reverification period (LIRP), Accredited meter verifier
Rogowski coil
A flexible, air-core current sensor that wraps around a conductor of almost any shape or size (including large bus bars), outputting a voltage proportional to the rate of change of current rather than a scaled current directly: requires an integrating circuit in the connected meter.
See also Current transformer (CT), Split-core CT
S-E specifications
Measurement Canada's series of technical specifications for electricity metering devices: S-E-02 (verification and reverification), S-E-03 (installation, input connections and ratings), S-E-04 (installation requirements for multiple customer metering systems), S-E-05 (net metering), S-E-06 (approval of type of meters and auxiliary devices), S-E-07 (approval of instrument transformers), S-E-08 (installation, standard drawings), S-E-09 (80/100 mA class CTs), S-E-10 (CT/meter wire sizing), and S-E-12 (loss compensation).
See also Approval of type, Instrument transformer
Service voltage
The nominal AC voltage supplied at a building's electrical service, e.g. 120/208 V, 240 V, or 347/600 V in Canadian practice. Determines the voltage rating a meter or CT must be specified for.
See also Phase configuration
Smart Metering Entity (SME)
The role, operated by the IESO under an Ontario Energy Board licence, responsible for Ontario's province-wide Meter Data Management/Repository (MDM/R): the central database storing and validating hourly smart meter consumption data that local distribution companies use for residential and small-business billing.
See also Green Button
Solid-core CT
A current transformer with a single unbroken core, requiring the conductor to be disconnected and threaded through the CT window during installation. Typically higher accuracy and lower cost than an equivalent split-core CT.
See also Split-core CT, Current transformer (CT)
Split-core CT
A current transformer built in two hinged halves that can be opened, clamped around an already-installed (potentially live) conductor, and closed: avoiding the need to disconnect the conductor for installation.
See also Solid-core CT, Current transformer (CT)
Sub-meter
A meter installed downstream of a utility's main revenue meter to measure a subset of a facility's load: a tenant unit, a specific circuit, or a piece of equipment, for internal monitoring or (if licensed) tenant billing.
See also Revenue meter, Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP), Current-only sensor
Suite meter
Under section 137 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 and Ontario Regulation 394/10, a meter (as defined in Part III of the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010) installed by a suite meter provider in a rental unit so a landlord can terminate its obligation to supply electricity and shift the tenant to individual, direct billing, with prescribed notice, consent and rent-reduction requirements.
See also Apportionment of utility costs, Unit sub-metering
THD (Total Harmonic Distortion)
A single summary figure, expressed as a percentage, quantifying how much a voltage or current waveform is distorted by harmonics relative to its fundamental component.
See also Harmonics
Tiered pricing
An Ontario electricity pricing plan where the per-kWh rate increases after a customer's monthly consumption passes a threshold (e.g. 1,000 kWh in winter, 600 kWh in summer for residential customers). An alternative to Time-of-Use pricing.
See also Time-of-Use (TOU), Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO)
Time-of-Use (TOU)
An Ontario electricity pricing plan with three price periods: off-peak, mid-peak and on-peak, where the clock hours assigned to each period (and, for some plans, the prices) vary by season. Set annually by the Ontario Energy Board.
See also Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO), Tiered pricing
Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO)
An Ontario electricity pricing plan with a very low overnight rate (11 p.m.–7 a.m.) in exchange for a much higher weekday evening on-peak rate, alongside weekend off-peak and mid-peak periods.
See also Time-of-Use (TOU), Tiered pricing
Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP)
A company licensed by the Ontario Energy Board, under section 57(c.1) of the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, to provide unit sub-metering services (metering and billing individual tenants or unit occupants) on behalf of a building owner. Must comply with the OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code, which in turn requires compliance with Measurement Canada standards as the metering floor.
See also Unit sub-metering, Unit Sub-Metering Code, Principal consumer
Unit sub-metering
The activity, defined operationally through the Ontario Energy Board Act (section 57(c.1)), the OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code, and the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010 regulations, of metering and billing individual occupants of a "prescribed property" for electricity. Requires an OEB licence as a unit sub-meter provider (USMP). Distinct from a facility sub-metering its own internal areas without billing a separate tenant, which does not require a USMP licence.
See also Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP), Principal consumer, Principal meter
Unit Sub-Metering Code
The Ontario Energy Board's code (first issued 2008, last revised August 18, 2025) setting minimum conditions and standards a licensed USMP must meet: metering (deferring to Measurement Canada standards as the floor), standards of business practice, and billing and collection rules including a no-markup rule for pass-through utility charges.
See also Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP), Principal meter
Verification (Measurement Canada)
The process of testing an electricity meter (or a meter's approved type and design) and sealing it before it can lawfully be put into service to obtain the basis of a charge for electricity supplied to someone. Required under section 9(1) of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act whenever a meter reading determines a bill.
See also Accredited meter verifier, Reverification period, Approval of type
Questions · 39 answers
What's the difference between kW and kWh?
kW measures the rate of power flow at an instant (or averaged over a short interval); kWh measures energy: kW sustained over time. A 10 kW load running for one hour uses 10 kWh. Your utility bills you for kWh (energy) and, for demand-billed accounts, separately for kW or kVA (demand, the highest sustained rate you drew).
What does power factor mean and why does it matter?
Power factor (PF = kW ÷ kVA) describes how much of the apparent power your equipment draws is actually doing useful work. A load with a poor power factor draws more current: and more kVA, than its kW use alone would suggest. On demand-billed tariffs that charge for kVA (common for General Service 50-999 kW accounts), a poor power factor directly increases the demand charge even if kWh use stays the same.
Can Quantify sub-meter my building and bill my tenants for their electricity?
Not without an Ontario Energy Board Unit Sub-Meter Provider (USMP) licence. The OEB licenses USMPs and requires them to follow the Unit Sub-Metering Code: including passing utility charges through with no markup and following prescribed billing, deposit and disconnection rules. A Quantify meter installed purely for internal energy monitoring (not used to invoice a tenant) does not by itself trigger USMP licensing, but tenant billing does.
What's the difference between a revenue meter and a monitoring sub-meter?
A revenue meter is accurate and approved to a recognized standard (such as ANSI C12.20, or carries a Measurement Canada notice of approval) and is suitable for billing. A monitoring sub-meter may use the same underlying hardware but isn't necessarily approved for trade use: fine for internal energy-management dashboards, not for invoicing someone based on its reading.
Do I need Measurement Canada approval for a meter I'm only using to monitor my own equipment?
No: Measurement Canada approval and its Notice of Approval registry exist to govern devices used in measurement-based trade (i.e. billing someone else based on the reading). A meter used purely for internal load monitoring, without billing a third party from its numbers, does not require that approval.
What's the difference between a solid-core and a split-core current transformer?
A solid-core CT has one continuous core and must have the conductor disconnected and threaded through it during installation: typically better accuracy for the price, but it usually means a planned outage on that circuit. A split-core CT opens on a hinge, clamps around an already-installed (potentially energized) conductor, and closes, faster and safer to retrofit, at somewhat higher cost or slightly lower accuracy for a given price point.
Why does my utility bill demand in kVA instead of kW?
Toronto Hydro's General Service 50-999 kW class bills its distribution demand charge per kVA (confirmed: $10.5170 per kVA per 30 days on that rate class), not per kW. Billing in kVA captures the load your wiring and the utility's transformers actually have to carry, including any reactive component, so a facility with a poor power factor pays for its full apparent-power draw, not just the real-power portion.
What's the difference between Class A and Class B electricity customers in Ontario?
Class A customers (generally larger industrial and commercial accounts) participate in the Industrial Conservation Initiative and are billed Global Adjustment based on their share of Ontario's five highest system-wide peak-demand hours of the year. Class B customers: residential, small business, and any Class A-eligible customer that doesn't opt in, have Global Adjustment folded into their regular rate or billed as a separate line item once Class A's share has been settled.
What is the Global Adjustment, and why is it often the largest line on my commercial bill?
The Global Adjustment (GA) covers the cost of new electricity infrastructure, contracted generation rates paid to suppliers, and conservation programs: it is a policy and contract cost pass-through, separate from the wholesale energy price. For many Ontario commercial and industrial customers it is the single largest dollar component of the bill, which is why Class A customers put significant effort into avoiding consumption during the province's coincident peak hours.
Can Quantify's Modbus meters write settings back to my electrical panel or breakers?
No. Every Modbus connection Quantify uses to a power meter is read-only: Quantify reads energy, demand and power-quality registers from the meter; it never writes configuration or control commands back to the meter or to anything else on that circuit.
What's the difference between Time-of-Use, Ultra-Low Overnight, and Tiered pricing, and can I choose?
All three are Ontario Energy Board-set pricing plans for residential and small-business accounts. Time-of-Use (TOU) charges different per-kWh rates for off-peak, mid-peak and on-peak hours that shift by season. Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO) trades a very low overnight rate for a much higher weekday evening on-peak rate. Tiered pricing charges a flat lower rate up to a monthly kWh threshold, then a higher rate above it. Eligible customers can typically switch between the plans their utility offers (confirm with your local distribution company, since eligibility and switching rules vary).
Does a pulse-output kWh meter also give me demand (kW) data?
Only indirectly. A pulse output tells you cumulative energy (each pulse = a fixed kWh increment); to estimate demand from it, a receiving system has to count pulses over a fixed window and divide by that window's length, which is coarser and more work than a meter that reports interval demand natively over Modbus. For Class A/ICI use cases where coincident-peak timing matters, a demand-capable Modbus meter is the more direct route.
What Canadian and international standards apply to CTs versus the meter itself?
Instrument transformers (CTs and PTs) are commonly rated to IEEE C57.13 or IEC 61869; the meter's own accuracy is commonly rated to ANSI C12.20 (North American practice) or IEC 62053 (international practice). A meter's stated overall accuracy class only holds if the CT feeding it is rated accurately enough and operated within its rated burden and current range.
How do I convert electricity usage (kWh) to compare against a gigajoule (GJ) gas bill?
1 kWh = 3.6 MJ = 0.0036 GJ exactly, since 1 watt is defined as 1 joule per second (1 kWh = 1,000 W x 3,600 s = 3,600,000 J). Equivalently, 1 GJ is about 277.78 kWh. This is a direct unit conversion, not a utility-specific figure: useful only when comparing an electrical load against a separately gas-metered load, since Ontario electricity bills are in kWh and gas bills are typically in m³ or GJ.
What is Green Button, and does it apply to my utility?
Green Button is a standard that lets a customer download their own detailed energy usage data directly from a participating utility, in a common machine-readable format: the no-hardware option for getting interval data without installing a sub-meter. Whether it's available depends on whether your specific Ontario LDC has implemented it; check with your utility directly.
Do I need Measurement Canada approval to charge a tenant for electricity?
Yes, if the meter's reading is used to determine a charge to the tenant. Section 9(1) of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act requires that any meter used "for the purpose of obtaining the basis of a charge for electricity ... supplied ... to" someone be of an approved type, verified and sealed by a Measurement Canada inspector or an accredited meter verifier, before it is put into that use. A sub-meter used only for a facility's own internal monitoring, with no charge passed on to anyone based on its reading, is not caught by this trigger.
Do I need a USMP licence to sub-meter and bill tenants for electricity?
The company doing the metering and billing does: the Ontario Energy Board Act makes it an offence to "engage in unit sub-metering" without a licence as a unit sub-meter provider (USMP), and the OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code sets the standards that licensee must follow. The building owner or landlord (the Code's "principal consumer") does not need to hold the licence personally, they contract with a licensed USMP, who carries the regulatory responsibility. A facility sub-metering only its own internal areas, without billing a legally separate tenant, generally does not need a USMP licence at all.
Can Quantify install an electricity sub-meter or a current transformer?
Not the physical electrical connection itself. Ontario's electrical safety framework requires that a Licensed Electrical Contractor (LEC) perform electrical work, file the required notification with the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA), and have the completed work inspected. Quantify should partner with an LEC for the physical installation and wiring of any sub-meter or CT; Quantify's own role is the monitoring hardware, communications and data, not the live electrical connection.
Is a "revenue-grade" meter the same as a Measurement Canada approved meter?
No, and this is a common point of confusion. "Revenue grade" is industry and marketing shorthand for an accuracy class considered suitable for billing (commonly ANSI C12.20 0.2 or 0.5, or IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5S): it is not a Measurement Canada term and has no legal standing by itself. Only a meter that has received Measurement Canada approval of type and has been verified and sealed by an inspector or an accredited meter verifier can lawfully be used as the basis of a charge to someone in Canada, no matter how accurate its datasheet claims.
How often does an electricity meter need to be reverified?
It depends on the meter type. Measurement Canada bulletin E-26 sets electromechanical (induction) meter reverification periods from 6 to 12 years initial (4 to 10 years subsequent), depending on element count and bearing type. Electronic meters are typically 6 years initial and 4 years subsequent, or 10 years initial and 8 years subsequent if the specific model has separately qualified for a lengthened initial reverification period under bulletin E-28.
Do current transformers (CTs) need their own Measurement Canada approval?
Yes. A CT or voltage transformer (VT) needs its own Measurement Canada approval of type under specification S-E-07 (or the PS-E-13 through PS-E-16 series for electronic current and voltage transformers), separate from the meter's own approval under S-E-06. A meter with a valid approval paired with an unapproved or wrong-class CT is not a legally compliant billing installation.
What's the difference between a suite meter and unit sub-metering?
They overlap but aren't identical. "Suite meter" is a Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (section 137) and Ontario Regulation 394/10 term specifically for a meter a landlord installs in a rental unit to shift a tenant to direct, individual electricity billing, with prescribed consent, notice and rent-reduction rules. "Unit sub-metering" is the broader Ontario Energy Board Act term (section 57(c.1)) for the licensed business of metering and billing individual occupants of a prescribed property, which the OEB's Unit Sub-Metering Code and the licensed USMP framework govern. A landlord using a suite meter arrangement in a rental building will typically be relying on a licensed USMP to provide it.
Does the Ontario Energy Board regulate sub-metering for a commercial or industrial facility's own internal use?
Generally no, if no separate tenant is being billed. The OEB's unit sub-metering licensing net is built around billing an occupant of a "prescribed property" under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010 framework: the confirmed, sourced examples are residential rental buildings and condominiums. A facility that sub-meters its own internal areas, cost centres or production lines for its own cost allocation or monitoring, without invoicing a legally separate tenant entity, is not "engaging in unit sub-metering" in the sense the Act and Code target, and needs no OEB licence. Where a client genuinely bills a separate tenant, confirm both the OEB licensing question and the Measurement Canada billing trigger directly with the OEB before committing.
Can I use a meter or CT with only a CE mark in Ontario?
No. Ontario's Product Safety Regulation (O. Reg. 438/07), administered by the Electrical Safety Authority, requires an electrical product to carry a recognized certification or evaluation agency's mark before it can be used, sold, displayed or advertised in Ontario. ESA's own list of recognized marks (CSA, cULus, cETLus, FM Approvals, NSF, TÜV and others) does not include the CE mark: a product with only a CE mark is not approved for Ontario. It would need a recognized Canadian/North American mark, or go through ESA's field-evaluation process.
Is the utility's own revenue meter subject to the same product-approval rules as my sub-meter?
No, and the exemption runs the other way. ESA's Product Safety Regulation specifically exempts "utility meters: revenue billing devices operated by Local Distribution Companies" from its own product-approval requirement, because that equipment's accuracy is already governed by Measurement Canada instead. A third-party sub-meter, CT, gateway or sensor that Quantify or a client installs does not get this exemption and needs a recognized Canadian mark of its own.
Why does peak demand measurement matter for my electricity costs even if I'm not required to sub-meter?
In Ontario, large electricity consumers (Class A, generally over 5 MW average monthly peak demand, with smaller thresholds available by opt-in) pay their monthly Global Adjustment charge based on a Peak Demand Factor: their percentage contribution to Ontario's five highest system-wide demand hours over a 12-month base period. Because that factor sets an entire year's cost allocation, accurate, well-timed demand data is commercially valuable independent of any metering regulation, which is why demand-tracking hardware matters even where no formal sub-metering rule applies.
Can I get my electricity usage data without installing my own meter?
Yes, through Green Button, which Ontario's Ministry of Energy required most regulated electricity and gas utilities to offer by November 1, 2023. Toronto Hydro's implementation, for example, offers "Download My Data" (your own consumption, billing and customer information) and "Connect My Data" (authorize a named third party, such as Quantify, to retrieve the same data). This is the no-hardware option: it gives historical or billing cycle data rather than a live pulse or Modbus feed, so Quantify's own device-based routes are ranked ahead of it for anything needing near-real-time data.
Can Quantify read my Modbus meter without touching the PLC?
Yes. Quantify's gateway connects to the meter's own RS-485 (Modbus RTU) or Ethernet (Modbus TCP) port as an independent Modbus master and reads its registers directly; it does not need to go through, or interfere with, any PLC or building automation system already polling the same meter. The gateway is also configured to issue only read commands (function codes 03/04); it never writes to a register, so it cannot change any meter setting or reset any total.
A pulse output is enough for consumption (kWh); it is Quantify's fallback route where Modbus and a true LoRaWAN-native CT meter aren't available or practical. What it cannot give you is demand (kW) or power factor, because a pulse train only ever says 'one more unit of energy happened'; it carries no voltage and current phase information and no instantaneous rate. If demand or PF matter for your application, Modbus (or a genuinely voltage-referenced power meter) is the route, not a bare pulse output.
Can we read the Hydro One smart meter directly?
Not independently confirmed either way in this research pass. Ontario's utility smart meters generally expose an optical or infrared port (the ANSI C12.18 type is common on North American utility meters), but this pass found no source confirming whether Hydro One allows a customer or third party to read that port directly, and Hydro One's own Green Button page could not be located during this research. The confirmed no-hardware route for utility data in Ontario is Green Button: Download My Data (a manual export) or Connect My Data (ongoing authorized access), which the OEB mandates for rate-regulated utilities, though the exact interval granularity was not independently confirmed for this page.
Does a LoRaWAN CT meter give me a real kWh figure?
It depends on the product. Some LoRaWAN CT sensors, including Milesight's CT10x and CT3xx families, measure current only, with no voltage input at all. Their 'energy consumption' reading is calculated as measured amp-hours multiplied by a voltage and a power factor that the installer types in once and which stay fixed, not measured. That figure will not track a real facility's actual PF or voltage over time. For a true, measured kWh, use Modbus to a power meter, or utility data.
Why does Quantify say Modbus is read-only if the meter's registers allow writes?
Because it's Quantify's own operating policy, not a limit the Modbus protocol imposes. Modbus itself defines both read function codes (03/04) and write function codes (05/06/15/16), and some meters, including the Acuvim II used as our worked example, do list some registers as read and write (a write is how a technician resets an energy accumulator). Quantify's gateway is deliberately configured to issue only the read commands, so it can never change a meter's configuration or reset a total, even though the meter's own firmware would technically allow it.
What's the difference between a 5A CT and a 333 mV CT, and why does it matter for safety?
A 5A (or 1A) secondary CT outputs a scaled current signal; and because it's a current source, opening its secondary circuit while the primary conductor is energized can develop a hazardous voltage, which is why these CTs need a CT shorting block before a meter is disconnected. A 333 mV CT has the burden resistor built in and outputs a safe, low-voltage millivolt signal instead; it does not develop that same open-circuit hazard and does not require a shorting block. Both types still require installation by a qualified, trained professional.
Who is allowed to wire a CT or connect to a live electrical panel?
In Ontario, that work falls under the Electrical Safety Authority's rules: it should be performed by a Licensed Electrical Contractor, who files the required electrical notification and permit for the work. Using an unlicensed electrician creates liability exposure and can void an insurance claim tied to that work. Quantify coordinates with a client's own licensed electrician (or uses its own appropriately licensed installers) for any panel-side wiring.
Can a pulse counter keep up with a large electrical service, or will we lose counts?
There's substantial headroom. Working the arithmetic for a 400 A, 600 V three-phase service (about 416 kW) against Quantify's LoRaWAN pulse counter (rated up to 2000 pulses per second): even at a fine 1 Wh-per-pulse weight, the pulse rate is only about 115 pulses per second, under 6% of the counter's ceiling. Pulse weight should be chosen for how quickly you want to see a load event, not to avoid overrunning the reader.
Does BACnet mean I need a separate meter, or can my Modbus meter still work?
A gateway can bridge the two. Quantify's example gateway (Accuenergy's AcuLink 810) reads Modbus-RTU/TCP meters and can republish that data as BACnet/IP, so a building automation system that expects BACnet points can still see a Modbus meter's readings without replacing the meter. A small number of meters, such as Accuenergy's Acuvim IIBN, speak BACnet/IP or BACnet MS/TP natively instead.
What's the difference between Green Button and IESO market data?
They're different systems for different customers. Green Button is the OEB-mandated, utility-level service most commercial and industrial customers would use: a manual export (Download My Data) or an authorized ongoing feed (Connect My Data) of your own usage from your local utility. IESO settlement metering is a separate, finer-grained (five-minute interval) system covering roughly 1,800 metering installations for entities that transact directly in Ontario's wholesale electricity market, typically large generators and large industrial loads registered as market participants, not a typical facility's day-to-day monitoring route.
If my meter has a CT input, do I need to tell Quantify the CT ratio?
Yes, during commissioning, but on the modern electronic meters Quantify favours, that ratio only needs to be programmed once, at setup. Once it is, the meter automatically applies it to every current, power and energy reading (and to any pulse output derived from those readings), so the numbers Quantify reads are already true primary-side values; no separate multiplication is needed downstream. This is confirmed on the Acuvim II's own register map, which publishes parallel raw and CT/PT-ratio-scaled formulas for its registers.
Is Dragino a like-for-like alternative to Milesight's CT10x for LoRaWAN current monitoring?
Not quite. Milesight's CT10x/CT3xx are purpose-built clamp-on current sensors with an integrated LoRaWAN radio. Dragino's closest product, the LT-22222-L, is a generic LoRaWAN I/O controller with 4-20 mA and 0-30 V analog inputs; it has no built-in CT clamp, so monitoring current with it means separately wiring in a third-party CT or transducer. Both approaches can work, but they aren't the same kind of product.
Access point for CSA C22.2 No. 61010-1 (safety requirements for measurement and control/laboratory equipment) and CSA Z462 (workplace electrical safety); purchase required for full text.
Ontario's electrical safety regulator: licensing, inspection, and administration of the Ontario Electrical Safety Code (OESC), relevant to any CT or meter installation.
IESO's program page for the ICI/Class A peak-shaving mechanism: the strongest reason a Class A customer wants interval demand data, not just cumulative kWh.
Search and purchase point for IEC standards, including IEC 61869 (instrument transformers) and IEC 62053 (AC electricity metering equipment) referenced in meter datasheets.
How to download interval and billing data ("Download My Data") or authorize a third party ("Connect My Data").
Not sure? Send us a photo of the panel and your last hydro bill.
The photo tells us the service voltage, what the conductors look like where a CT would go, and whether there is panel space and control power. The bill tells us the rate class, whether demand is billed in kVA, and what the site actually draws. We will tell you what we would put in, what it reads, and what it takes to get it onto a dashboard.
