Advanced power meters from several manufacturers, including those evaluated at MTDC, need to be mounted in a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)-rated enclosure. These enclosures must also accommodate an assortment of safety devices, switches, and communications links. Many local building codes require that the components and wiring practices used in these integrated assemblies have Underwriters Laboratory (UL) certifications or meet National Fire Protection Association standards.

The availability of integrated packages that included the NEMA-rated enclosure (or the cost of designing enclosures) was a factor when MTDC chose advanced power meters to evaluate. Even though MTDC has a wiring plan for constructing an enclosure, there are significant advantages to using a preassembled, integrated enclosure.

Schneider Electric has integrated packages for an assortment of its advanced meters. Several distributors of Schneider Electric products will build the integrated assemblies and can install and commission them.

Similar assemblies have been designed for the EIG meters, but the assemblies MTDC viewed lacked some of the features found in Schneider Electric assemblies that make it relatively easy to connect the meter to the monitored circuits.

While Schneider Electric and EIG submeters cost between $1,000 and $2,500, NEMA enclosures with protection and communication circuits cost another $1,000 to $2,000. Installation by a licensed electrician would cost another $500 or so.

Commissioning the meters after installation is an additional expense. The cost of commissioning would vary based on:

• Verifying that the current transformers have the correct orientation and are matched to the proper phase voltages
  
  
• Programming the IP address in the meters that are connected to the Forest Service's internal computer networks and verifying that the meter is communicating with the remote computer
  
  
• Programming the meters to log the desired parameters and for the proper circuit configurations (3-phase, 2-phase, voltage per phase, size of the current transformer)
  
  
• Programming the advanced meter and verifying that it is communicating with submeters and peripherals