How to Buy the Best Electric Sub-Meters for Tenants
June 23, 2025
The procurement process for choosing the best electric sub-meters for tenants is convoluted.
On the surface, most smart meters on the market generally offer the same core features:
Smart capabilities
Accuracy,
Measurement Canada approved.
But checking those boxes should be standard.
Where most legacy meter technologies fall behind, though, is in adapting to solve practical issues in the sub-metering landscape.
Your procurement scope shouldn’t be limited to whether meters can simply get your system online and billing. Sub-metering technology worth investing in should support practicality and scalability to support your operations, property owners, and their tenants throughout the entire lifecycle of the system.
Meter Technology Driven by Innovation
Electric sub-metering systems by Sieco-Tech are built for real-world performance for residential, commercial, and industrial properties.
Sieco-Tech smart meters are engineered for durability and complete data reliability in all new and retrofit projects. Our technology is tested to perform in even the most challenging structural conditions like dense concrete and steel as well as extreme cold to high-heat environments.
Advanced Features Set Meters Apart
What separates an average meter from a great investment is how well a sub-metering system can be customized to the realities of your buildings and what it will require to manage them effectively.
That includes installation conditions, suite layouts, building materials, and local climate.
An excellent residential metering system adapts to these variables with flexible installation options and straightforward servicing.
Key Features to Watch for Include:
- Modular design and footprint
- Meter point configuration
- Ease of Installation
- Serviceability without rewiring or breaking seals
- Longevity and remote management
The Bottom Line
The best electric sub-meters for tenants are those designed to facilitate ease of installation AND ease of service.
Now, let’s dive into more specific features.
Lower Price Per Meter Point
Traditionally, sub-metering costs don’t scale well with suite count.
You would think more suites would mean a proportional increase in cost. However, in practice, legacy multi-customer metering systems often result in significantly faster cost increases.
In other words, if you double the number of suites, your sub-metering costs don’t just double.
This disproportional rate is the result of an outdated electric sub-meter design being locked with rigid 12- and 9-suite panel configurations.
These layouts cause:
- Wasted meter points
- Extra hardware to bridge gaps in capacity
- Additional labor for installing more panels than necessary
- Increased space requirements in electrical rooms
Misaligned Design
In mid- to high-rise buildings, suite layouts rarely align with 12- and 9-point meter increments.
For example, if you need to meter 27 suites and are using 12-suite panels, you'll need three panels, resulting in a total of 36 meter points. That’s nine unused points you're still paying for with the unit, installation time, and physical space — 33% of which will never be used.
Multiply that mismatch across multiple electrical closets or an entire high-rise, and the inefficiencies become costly.
Plug-and-Play Flexibility
Sieco-Tech meters are designed to avoid this problem altogether.
Our plug-and-play Multi-Customer Panel (MCP) system is designed based on individual six-suite meter modules that can be combined and grow to match the number of meter points more precisely to each electrical closet or floor.
The result is a lower price per point as suite counts increase.
This modular approach streamlines installation by involving fewer panels, fewer materials, and fewer connection points. This means faster work and lower labor requirements on the front-end. You’re saving both on capital investment AND service calls, maintenance complexity, and real estate inside your electrical closets.
For example, with Sieco-Tech’s MCP system in a 27-suite project, you’d simply install a fifth module. You’d still have a slight overage — just three unused points — that still fits neatly into a single, modular enclosure.
You’re not forced into overbuying panels, and you’re not left managing partial systems across multiple rooms.
Efficiency at Installation
Getting an electrical sub-metering system installed and ready to bill is the heaviest lift of a project. This critical phase can also determine the long-term performance of a system.
Electric sub-meter installation requires field splicing, handwritten CT serials, and constant back-and-forth between electricians and commissioning teams. Each of these quickly consumes time over numerous meter points, and each manual step is an opportunity for mistakes, mislabeling and errors — issues that delays are expensive to fix.
The best electrical sub-meters empower crews to execute these steps faster and without mistakes. Saving time is critical for getting systems online and bills out, but doing it right the first time prevents you from paying twice for an install.
Made for Easy Installs
Sieco-Tech’s pre-manufactured CT cables, spring-loaded terminals, and color-coded components have been designed by our industry experts to help eliminate points of failure before they ever happen.
Pre-Manufactured CT Cables by Sieco-Tech
Instead of hand-splicing and documenting dozens of individual CTs on-site, electricians simply plug labeled connectors into the MCP’s terminal card, practically eliminating mistakes from mislabeling, wrong phase pairing or bad crimps.
Sieco-Tech CT cables come ready-to-wire for electrical sub-metering systems — factory-assembled, color-coded, and pre-labeled with the correct serial numbers and phase indicators.
Spring-loaded Terminals
Sieco-Tech engineers have designed commercial and residential meters that can be quickly installed on-site, featuring spring-loaded terminals for efficient and fast wiring.
The terminals make it so electricians don’t have to fiddle with screws or guess at wire positions. Everything is angled for visibility, accessible from the front, and color-aligned to reduce installation friction.
Easier, Cheaper Maintenance & Re-Verification
Great sub-meters don’t just get projects complete; they support operations.
Every system needs to be maintained, re-verified, and occasionally serviced. In addition, Measurement Canada, the federal body responsible for regulating meter accuracy, requires more than just basic compliance.
Every meter model must first be type-approved and individually tested for accuracy (S-E-02). From there, every meter point must pass a field inspection (S-E-04) after installation.
Where costs begin to spike is every six to 10 years, when Measurement Canada requires a property’s meters to be re-verified.
Most sub-metering systems require significant on-site work to exchange a unit. You’re dealing with full panel swaps, rewiring, manual paperwork, extended site visits by electricians, and coordination with inspectors.
Any change to the sealed wiring terminals on most systems, even during standard maintenance, can automatically trigger the need for another on-site S-E-04 inspection.
This all adds days of delay, paperwork, and costs to what should be routine work.
Multi-Sealed, Easily Serviced
Sieco-Tech meters are designed to eliminate that disruption.
Each MCP module can be removed and replaced without touching the wiring or breaking Measurement Canada seals. That means a trained technician (not an electrician) can perform a meter swap in minutes, without re-inspection.
The onboard DCU handles install/uninstall steps and logs every change. Updates are automatically pushed to your billing system, so there’s no paperwork to fill out and no chance of transcription errors.
Re-verifying a 200-suite building becomes a half-day job for one technician, not a multi-day project with licensed electricians, paperwork handoffs, and costly inspector callbacks.
Sieco-Tech is Made to Measure
The best electrical sub-meters for tenants are designed and innovated for the field, not a spec sheet.
Sieco-Tech smart energy meters are engineered by industry veterans with decades of experience in sub-metering, who’ve done the fieldwork, and who’ve suffered operational challenges firsthand.
That is the depth of understanding built into every feature of Sieco-Tech’s electric meters.