Broadback wrote:

They come with a charger which plugs into a mains socket. The will work
for a while until the battery discharges. Very similar in that way to a
mobile phone. To my mind their big weakness is that they have a p*ss
poorÂ* range, so as my electric meter is at the far end of the house it
will not work properly in my lounge. A frustrating waste of space.

You seem to be talking about the in-house display (mine has no battery)
not the meters themselves, that is of course powered by customer paid
electricity, but there is no compulsion for you to leave it plugged in
(though if you do unplug it, bear in mind it can take several minutes to
send updated meter readings to the IHD).