Type 5 Electricity Meters

Your Type 5 electricity meter may look a little different to your last meter. And it works a little different too. It’s called a Type 5 or 'interval' meter because it records your electricity consumption (in kWh) every 30 minutes and then stores that information electronically until it's read.

Reading your meter.

With traditional meters, your consumption was calculated by subtracting the previous meter reading from the current one to show how much electricity you have used. This subtractive method gives you the figure for the billing period. Now, when your interval meter is read by your network distributor, the recorded intervals provide us with a total consumption figure for that billing period.

Generally, meter reads are taken physically, and the total consumption read will appear on your TRUenergy bill. However, depending on how your meter is configured, there are some interval meters (i.e. smart meters) that can also be read remotely. The meter data is provided in this way to enable us to break the usage into intervals and then bill customers based on the sum of all the intervals.

Reading your bill.

Just because your meter looks different, it doesn’t change the way your bill looks. It contains all the regular features including your opening balance, activity during the billing cycle and the total amount due.

In the future, we’re looking at ways to give you more details about your energy use. The breakdown of your use from your new meter rather than an overall figure will make this possible. It’s a small difference but it will add up in your favour.

Smart Meters

Smart meters are a new type of interval meter being rolled out to all residential and small business customers across Victoria. There are also smart meters in selected homes in other states.

Click here for more information on Smart Meters and the Victorian Smart Meter Rollout.