Thanks for answering the question, what it means is that you have a watt hour meter, nothing to do with VA, VAr, power factor or anything, just watt hours like everyone else. If it's working properly it will measure the ENERGY you consume to within 1% as required by law, just like every other domestic meter in the land, mechanical or electronic.
So if your reading the meter accurately you're back to a very simple fact, they changed your meter and the recorded consumption jumped up, there are three obvious possibilities that spring to mind with the most likely first:
The old meter warn out meter was reading low, that's one reason they're replacing them. The new meter is faulty and reading high. The old meter was reading low AND the new one is reading high thus magnifying the problem.
Try going back to them and simply saying that the new meter has doubled your consumption so you want it tested, don't mention ANYTHING else, no clever stuff about power factor, machinery etc. You're talking to a muppet no matter what he thinks he knows, (ok at best a head muppet 8-)) so behave like any unhappy customer who has seen their bill double when a new meter is installed and you should get it tested. They should either come out with an expensive bit of kit to test it or just send a sparky around to change it for a new one, most likely the latter as it's cheaper!. Good luck.
Greg