BTU meter

On district cooling (Empower, Emicool and similar), a BTU meter measures how much cooling your home actually consumes. It reads the chilled-water flow through your home and the temperature difference between the water going in and coming back, and totals the cooling delivered — so it's the cooling equivalent of an electricity meter. That reading is the variable, consumption part of your district-cooling bill, charged on top of the fixed capacity/demand charge that surprises so many residents. Why it matters practically: if your district-cooling bill jumps with no change in how you live, a faulty or misread BTU meter — or a leaking/stuck FCU control valve letting chilled water pass continuously — can be inflating the consumption you're billed for, which is worth having a chilled-water technician check.