Legal aspects

In connection with the Energy Act, which by 2027 provides for the obligation to install heat and water meters with remote reading, Apator Powogaz has developed a number of facilities in the field of remote reading, e.g. the customer can check the consumption of a given medium on a specially prepared platform, he can make payments online. These amenities fully comply with Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 25, 2012 on energy efficiency.

Accordance with the Announcement of the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of June 7, 2016 on the Act - Law on Measurements, Journal of Laws 2016 item 884 and the Regulation of the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology of March 22, 2019 on the legal metrological control of measuring instruments, Journal Of Laws item 759, it is stated that the measuring instrument should be submitted for re-verification before the expiry date (specified in the regulations issued on the basis of Article 9 point 4) of the validity period from the conformity assessment. For water meters, this period is 5 years. In sec. 2 point 2, it is stated that the period of legalization is counted from the first day of December of the year whose marking was applied to the instrument during the conformity assessment and ends on November 30 of the fifth year. Information about the year in which the conformity assessment was carried out is included in the metrological marking on the measuring instrument (capital letter "M" and the last two digits of the year).

Water meters and heat meters with a nominal flow rate not exceeding 500 m3/h, excluding constriction heat meters and folded heat meters, are subject to legalization for a period of five years starting from the first day of January of the year following the year in which the legalization was made. In the case of heat meters, the same period applies to pairs of temperature sensors and flow transducers. The validity of legalization is confirmed by the legalization feature specifying the entity that made the legalization and the year of its completion. In the case of water meters and heat meters, the feature usually takes the form of a lead seal, a sticker or a hologram placed on the housing.

Heating cost allocators (regardless of the type of construction and type) are not measuring devices within the meaning of the Act of May 11, 2001 - Law on Measurements (Journal Of Laws of 2013, item 1069, of 2015, item 978 and of 2016, item 542). Pursuant to the provisions of art. 4 point 5 of this Act, a measuring instrument is a device, a measuring system or its components, intended to perform measurements alone or in combination with one or more additional devices. Heating cost allocators are not measuring devices, because they do not measure any physical quantity (including heat) - most often the increase in their indications (expressed in non-nominated divisions) depends on the temperature of the radiator surface at the place of installation of the allocator and the time of heat dissipation by the radiator. Therefore, heating cost allocators are not subject to legal metrological control (type approval and legalization), and therefore also the obligation to obtain evidence of this control.

• Secondary verification is performed due to the expiration of the previous verification of all devices. The use of water meters for settlements without a valid legalization mark under the Law on Measures is punishable by a fine.
• Statistical verification - using this method, you can re-verify a homogeneous batch of heat meters, components for heat meters, gas meters, AC active electricity meters and water meters. It consists in selecting by the current manager a certain number of measuring devices that must be dismantled and sent for inspection for metrological control. If the specified number of devices in a given batch does not meet the specified parameters, unfortunately, the entire batch will have to undergo standard legalization. Below are the quantitative requirements for accepting/rejecting statistical validation: