Fox's Mercantile wrote:

----------------------

Phil Allison wrote:

** They use*wattmeters* that accumulate so becoming
"Watt-hour" meters.

Customers get charged for the actual energy used, not
merely current over time.

The ones where I live look much like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowa...ebec_meter.JPG

The spinning disk will not move unless both current and
voltage of the same polarity exist at the same time.


Back in Manhattan Beach, California, while living with a
friend, The house had a single 120 vac feed, not the more
common 120/120 240 vac feed. So his 1 KW Heathkit amplifier
would draw a LOT of current.


** Heathkit ? 1kW ??

FYI, there is ZERO phase angle between the V and I drawn by an amplifier.


I picked up a power company power factor correction
capacitor. Heh, when we put that across the line, the watt
meter would come to a complete halt.

Watt hour meters will read, properly, with an r+j impedance
load. They get confused with an r-j impedance.


** Hope that is not some weed induced hallucination form the late 1960s...

The only thought I have that connects is the power company, aware such shenanigans sometime went on, fitted a device to PREVENT the watt-hour meter ever going backwards. Easy enough to do, in the reduction gear chain for eg.

**** the hell out of greenish coloured folk nowadays, with their roofs covered in acres of PVs.



..... Phil