Today, a team representing themselves as being from Meralco, came to the house to change our electric meter. I had no advance notice about meter changes and seeing that this is Christmas time, I was a little wary at first. Was this for real or some scheme by no-good-doers?
Well, don’t worry. It is legit. The 2 people from Meralco (they came with proper identification) were here to replace my very old analog electric meter with a new one – this time, it’s digital!
Reading the meter will be so much easier for the Meralco meter readers since the clock-like representation of the numbers on the old analog meter will now be replaced by digital numbers. Also, in the old meter, the power usage indicator is the speed of the spinning disc inside the meter. In the digital meter, this is the digital numbers at the lower left of the meter.
My old analog meter
To prevent tampering, Meralco attached their own seal on the meter.
The meter switch only takes a few minutes. They’ll need to shut off power to your home during the change, that’s all.
The move to digital meters, I believe, is just the start of more services coming to Meralco’s consumers. E-services that are coming need to work with digital meters. Already, Meralco has announced that they will be introducing prepaid electricity.
It may be good to advise whoever are left in your homes that Meralco is changing meters so they don’t get alarmed especially during the holiday season. But always err on the side of caution and demand proper identification.
To read some of the digital services Meralco is looking into, check my post: Meralco: Innovating to Empower.