Importance

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Abstract

A metering system for metering the consumption of electrical energy to provide time-of-use and demand metering in the presence of at least one power outage event includes an encoder device for transmitting a radio frequency (RF) signal and a interrogate/receiver device for receiving the radio frequency signal transmitted by the encoder device. The encoder device has apparatus for sensing electrical power consumption and for sensing a power outage. Additionally, the encoder device has apparatus for periodically generating an encoded RF signal for transmission by the encoder device. The signal has a plurality of discrete components, each of the components being related to electrical power consumption over a selected interval of time. The signal further has a power outage flag associated with each discrete component, the flag being set for any interval of time during which a power outage is sensed. A meter counter for incrementally increasing a count as a function of time is included. The meter counter is powered by the electrical power being metered. The interrogate/receiver device has a decoder that is communicatively coupled to the encoder device for decoding the encoded RF signal received from the encoder device. A receiver counter for incrementally increasing a count as a function of time is asynchronous with respect to the meter counter.

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First Claim