Musings about meters
I had never really thought too much about metered electricity (just paid the fee the campsite charged, roughly around €3 to €5, until I stayed overnight at the free Concorde motorhome parking area next to the Concorde factory at Schlusselfeld, just off the A3 autobahn in Germany (pictured). I can highly recommend this stopover.
This perfect overnight parking had metered electricity at €0.50 per kWh and, having connected, I put in €2, hoping this would last my stay.
I was amazed next morning when ready to leave to see that my usage and cost was only 63c in total for running my fridge all night and use of internal lights and phone charger.
No change was given. I was not concerned about that as Concorde offers the parking for free, but it really opened my eyes as to how little electric I use in my VW Auto-Sleeper Trident on overnight stays.
When a site charges €5, it seems I am seriously overpaying for my usage. So, you can understand why I am totally in favour of metered usage, being in a small campervan.
Geoff Byford
I read with interest the letters concerning electricity metering in the August edition. We have, over our years of being tuggers, but now into motorhomes (on our second since 2018), had experiences with pitches being metered. There are several aspects to consider.
In the earlier days, we would find that the we were kept waiting while someone from the reception went to check the meters at the post.
Lately, they have been metered in the offices, which speeds up things somewhat.
But consider the complexity of the wiring to the sockets at the pitches. Each and every socket has to be metered, therefore on a separate circuit.
Currently you may find that unmetered is the norm, which cuts down on the wiring installation cost, but means that the connection has to be able to carry the load of all the sockets at, say, 16A each, if you are lucky.
With metering being recording at the post you have the issue as I stated earlier.
When we have encountered remote meters, you have no means, usually, of reading the meter as you go. As far as reception is concerned, the remote meters help them process checkout faster, but is the most expensive option.
Imagine if all were to change over to this, the cost would be considerable on some very large sites, which would likely be passed on to customers.
I suppose the alternative is to have prepaid cards, which means you can control electric spend. Would it be cheaper, as most people would have no idea as a tourist what the local rate is going to be?
Of course, there is an alternative, which is to be off-grid entirely, going to sites
