Understanding your meter

The meter measures your electricity usage. Traditional meters can be mechanical or digital and can come with one display (measuring units over 24 hours) or two displays (one for measuring day tariff units and one for night tariff units).

When reading your meter only record the black numbers before the decimal and ignore the red ones behind the decimal.

As part of the climate action plan the ESB is replacing all existing meters with smart meters (this is free of charge and one example that is covered by your standing charge). Smart meters will automatically submit meter readings to your energy provider and will also record additional data like energy usage patterns. You can access this data if you create an account with the ESB (which is free of charge). Checking this data can tell you a lot about when and how much energy you use and if a change in how you use energy could save you money.

Smart meters are the only meters that offer three tariffs: Night tariff runs from 11pm - 8am and is the cheapest, day tariff runs from 8am - 5pm & 7pm - 11pm and is comparable to the flat tariff and peak tariff runs from 5pm -7pm. The latter is considerably more expensive than the other two to encourage energy users to turn on appliances outside these two hours. The goal is to spread energy usage more evenly over the day to lessen the stress on the grid. This will become more and more important the more Ireland uses renewable energy sources.

To take advantage of potentially cheaper tariffs that come with smart meters and have meter readings submitted automatically you have to contact your energy provider to register the smart meter with them.

You will find more information on meters on the ESB website.