Testing electricity meters for susceptibility to radio frequency interference

The Electricity Meter Examining Service (EMES) of the Office of Electricity Regulation (OFFER), has been carrying out RF immunity testing on electronic electricity meters, using its own apparatus, since 1990. It was soon recognised that it was difficult to achieve consistent and repeatable results using a “strip line” system. Because of the anticipated increase in frequency range required for this test, and because a lower level of uncertainty was required, the EMES abandoned the strip line and adopted the wide band transverse electromagnetic (TEM) cell, commonly known as the GHz TEM (GTEM) cell, for carrying out these tests. The purpose of this paper is to discuss RF immunity test systems and to demonstrate how consistent and repeatable RFI measurements are now being achieved by the EMES