I’m at a very RURAL home today and there’s a60 amp meter that appears to only be feeding this things. The main wires for the house are running thru this and I’ve never seen anything like it before. Any ideas??
I know what it looks like, but can’t think of it’s name at the moment.
It looks like a donut transformer from here.
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Current transformer used for metering.
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Since they already have a meter on the service, do you know if this device used by the utility company for calibration or check against theft?
No it is actually part of the metering. If you look at the meter you’ll see that there are no service conductors run into and then out of the meter like in a normal meter enclosure. There is only a small conduit with a few small conductors probably #12 or #10 AWG. The CT’s (current transformers) will drop the current down proportionally based on their rating. This is probably a 100/5 amp CT meaning that it will read a current at the meter that is 1/20th of the actual current flowing through the conductor within the CT.
For example when the meter reads 2.5 amps it knows that due to the CT ratio the current through the CT is 50 amps. From there it can calculate kilowatt hours.
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It’s a CT (current transformer). They are used when it isn’t practical to have the current flow through the meter.
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