Ok, here's the deal. AmerenUE is raping us again. The first year my wife and I owned our home, our power usage didn't fluctuate much for the entire year, except for the first August when we left the HVAC blower "ON" instead of set to "Auto" 
; That was the first time the usage went up to 2000 units. Our normal usage is typically between 1300 and 1800. This month's bill, they claim we used a bit over 2700 units. :WTF2:
The thing is, NOTHING'S changed significantly since about the third month we owned the house. On a typical day, A/C, two servers and a disk array (the entire rack draws about 12A according to my UPS’s), two desktop PCs, 10 gallon Fish tank, fridge and one small chest freezer are all that's running, with sporadic TV and light usage (almost all lights are CFL's). All of this has been in the house and running since the second or third month we lived here. This summer hasn’t been significantly warmer than the 2007 or 2008 summers, in fact it seems like it may be a little milder.
Now that you have the "Novel" background, here's the question: Our meter is rated for 240V. Ameren has been pushing line voltages up to and exceeding 250V. This has been a problem elsewhere in the area where their transformers are pushing even higher voltages causing 220V motors to burn out prematurely. Will pushing higher line voltages than the meter is rated for cause erroneous usage readings? In theory, I would think it could, as with the motors that are burning out, the higher voltages are causing them to turn faster, so I would think the same could apply to a meter; If X watts at 240V is going to make the meter spin at Y speed, then the same load at 250V could make the meter spin faster, thinking that the customer is using more power than they really are. Or am I way off track?
; That was the first time the usage went up to 2000 units. Our normal usage is typically between 1300 and 1800. This month's bill, they claim we used a bit over 2700 units. :WTF2: The thing is, NOTHING'S changed significantly since about the third month we owned the house. On a typical day, A/C, two servers and a disk array (the entire rack draws about 12A according to my UPS’s), two desktop PCs, 10 gallon Fish tank, fridge and one small chest freezer are all that's running, with sporadic TV and light usage (almost all lights are CFL's). All of this has been in the house and running since the second or third month we lived here. This summer hasn’t been significantly warmer than the 2007 or 2008 summers, in fact it seems like it may be a little milder.
Now that you have the "Novel" background, here's the question: Our meter is rated for 240V. Ameren has been pushing line voltages up to and exceeding 250V. This has been a problem elsewhere in the area where their transformers are pushing even higher voltages causing 220V motors to burn out prematurely. Will pushing higher line voltages than the meter is rated for cause erroneous usage readings? In theory, I would think it could, as with the motors that are burning out, the higher voltages are causing them to turn faster, so I would think the same could apply to a meter; If X watts at 240V is going to make the meter spin at Y speed, then the same load at 250V could make the meter spin faster, thinking that the customer is using more power than they really are. Or am I way off track?
