Southwest Tennessee Electric and other power distributors measure the amount of energy you use each month with a meter that is installed on the service entrance of your home or business.

Electricity is measured in kilowatt hours, or kwh. A kilowatt hour is the equivalent of 1,000 watts of energy used for 1 hour. For example, 1 kwh is the amount of energy used by 10 100 watt bulbs burning for 1 hour.

Southwest Tennessee Electric is currently deploying an automated system that sends daily usage information back to our substations and then our offices via a secure data network. This system has been installed and is currently being used in much of our service area.

In other areas, STEMC utilizes a contract service (Heath Consultants) to read our meters. Our plans are to have the automated meter reading (AMR) system fully deployed during 2007.

Regardless of the system used, STEMC takes great care to ensure the accuracy of our monthly meter reads. Several systems and checks are inplace to improve the accuracy of our process. Click here to learn more about our AMR system.