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i know it is some sort of a load controller, this unit looks like a electric meter, but it is inside the house, and connected to ( or it was ) a water heater.
my question is. how did this work, and was it a self learning device ? or did the electric company control it ?
i tried to find info on the web about it. but had no luck...

See if this is related! http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4656593.html
Len

dacflyer wrote:i know it is some sort of a load controller, this unit looks like a electric meter, but it is inside the house, and connected to ( or it was ) a water heater.
my question is. how did this work, and was it a self learning device ? or did the electric company control it ?
i tried to find info on the web about it. but had no luck...

Here is my guess.
Some electrical utilities (at least here in Canada) offer some kind of monetary discount if your hot water heater does not consume electrical power during peak periods, like 5 to 8 PM when ovens are in use. That device probably disables the heating coils at certain times. Could that thing inside it that looks like a meter actually be a timer?

Why don't you give your electrical utility a call and ask?

Side Note:
Our utility company here in Maryland uses radio controlled switches to shed the AC and/or water heater load during peak demand periods.
There is no set timed cycle, they do it based on load demands. You can enroll in a higher load shed percent and get a larger rebate if desired.
Len

i have tried to ask a few guys i know with my local utility. they said these units were offered by another utility co. years ago. but he did not know how they operated.
i am not sure if it was something pre-programmed or if it was remotely controlled.
it has 2 leds on it.. a red one and a yellow one. but no markings of its state.

Hope the OP is still around...

I'm guessing it looks like this? https://www.ebay.com/itm/222069286156

If so, it is part of a system that injects a carrier signal into the power lines; the transmitter is housed in the substation, which sends the signal through a box containing an impedance-coupling transformer and from there, through a set of capacitors to the distribution circuit.

When the signal corresponding to the unit's address arrives at the unit, it then activates the designated load for a given interval, after which the controller restores the load.

There should be two or three LEDs on the unit - an amber one 'T' that only lights if it has seen a signal in the last hour or so and one or two red LEDs that only light when the designated load is currently being controlled.

I didn't think about it back then, but it looks like a carrier controlled off-peak meter. I have an old off-peak meter outside of my house that I need to , at some point, have removed, and it uses a mechanical timer to switch the power on and off to the meter. This looks like the updated version circa when the power companies went to the line carrier control versions of the original meters so that they didn't have to pay meter readers anymore.