WARNING SOLAR PANELS & some Siemens S2AS-100/ Siemens S1AS-100 Meters

furndire

Edited to add I have now got a check meter installed which proved withing a couple of hours that this is happening. If your meter is Siemens S2AS-100, or Siemens S1AS-100 you definitely need to read this and check your meter.

To sum up every KW of electric I produce, but don't use is being ADDED to my electric bill & it could be happening to you too.
Edited 3rd June - check meter has proven that the old meter clocking on produced electric.


I have posted a lot of this in a couple of other posts, but the more I think about it, the more I think others - especially the "free panellers" need to be aware of what could happen as this can cost them money by adding on KWs instead of taking them off.

Check that your meter is capable of distinguishing between imported & exported electric. Ours isn't, and its taken me 9 months to work it out!!!! Its a digital meter, so you don't see anything moving, only clocking up in full KW.
Its only now that because the sun is really bright, that we have been able to check it out. I could not understand why my electric bills have not really gone down a lot.

So when the sun was blazing - showing 3000 on monitor, we turned everything, bar the invertor off. The mains electric meter was still going up, and quickly clocking up 1 KW approximately every 10/20 mins - we then started putting stuff on - the more we switched on, the slower the electric meter clocked on the KW's.
It was difficult to tell this has been happening, as I reckon we use roughly 1/2 KW background electric every hour - and this was normal, even though we have all A rated appliances. I've rung the electric company several times, as I thought that even this was high, and they've always fobbed me off saying thats about right. The only way I could do anything was if they came and checked the meter, but this was going to cost me - originally they said about £80.
After seeing for myself the other day and realising what is happening, I have now told them to come and check the meter - price has now dropped to £31.80p

FREE PANNELERS - My point is if your meter isn't compatable, you will not notice when the weather is dull, and the only way to find out is when the sun is blazing. The people who fitted your panels will be getting the FiTs payments, and you will have no way of monitoring what is happening.
It could be costing you money on your electric bills. Maybe just trickling away a KW a day, but it adds up.

I am now starting to wonder if that is one of the reasons expectations for very low savings on electric bills, on this point I am probably wrong, but it has certainly made me think.

By my reckoning I should not have been paying for any electric this last few days during the day - we still are - hopefully not for much longer, and then comes the battle to apportion blame.

To stop the mains electric meter rising so rapidly, (we've been producing between 18- 24 watts per day) we have had to go totally against everything to lower consumption, and even had a fan heater running - just so we wouldn't be getting charged for the electricity we are producing. :eek:
I feel very stupid that I have not realised what was happening sooner - so be warned, it could be happening to you.
It is something that I would have expected the installers to check as part of my paying for the system to be fitted - ???.
But the people who are fitting "free" panels won't be bothered, as it doesn't matter to them whether its compatable or not they are getting their FiTs money.

spiro

As the customer you are required to notify your supplier and distributor that you have fitted generation. Your supplier should then ensure your meter is suitable.

furndire

Thanks Spiro - Supplier knew right from day 1, notified them to be able to get the FiT payments, and they got all the paperwork required.
What is so annoying is that from the first week I thought something wasn't quite right, and have rung them several times, but always got talked out of what I thought was going on. Every time I spoke to someone they were told we have solar panels - The last time I rung was a couple of weeks ago - there is supposed to an online meter reading facility - which stopped working in Dec. When I tried telling them I was trying to monitor my useage this way, all they did was send me out a b.... brochure on how to save electric :mad:(Which these sunny days, is doing exactly the reverse of what I need to do). They then proceeded to tell me the online facility was not meant to be used this way, and to stop trying to use it!!!. They will have my daily electric readings from July last year to when the online facility stopped working. Because our electricity consumption has dropped by a third over the past 3 years, they assumed it was partly because of the panels - er no its not, we done all the energy saving things like buying new A & AAA appliances, turning stuff off etc.
Luckily when the online facility stopped working, I took readings from my Mains Meter, & Generation Meter every week. For an example, last week we produced 141 KW of electric & still managed to use 123 KW - as much as we were using in the middle of winter!!!.

At the moment, I feel really sick to the pit of my stomach at the thought of 1, what has happened, and 2 how the supplier is going to deal with this.
There must be someway that it can be worked out how much I have overpaid.
I need someone who is good with figures & can corrolate? the figures I have. When I think about it, for every KW that I produced I have been charged twice for - it should not have gone on the meter in the first place, but has been added on instead.:(

Oh well, rant over, back to going round and gradually turning stuff on again as the monitor is showing nearly 2000 again. There's only so much washing, dishwashing, you can do.
(edited to say stopped putting stuff on to slow meter down - that took too much effort)

espresso

furndire wrote: »

I have posted a lot of this in a couple of other posts, but the more I think about it, the more I think others - especially the "free panellers" need to be aware of what could happen as this can cost them money by adding on KWs instead of taking them off.

Check that your meter is capable of distinguishing between imported & exported electric. Ours isn't, and its taken me 9 months to work it out!!!!.....................

Can you post a picture showing your main electricity meter and the associated cables?

dunloadin

The fitment of an export meter is a must...usually only done by the DNO for your area. You may find that they may twist your arm to use them as your supplier if you are with another company; the DNO where I am won't fit one if your not with them.

You think you got issues, a recent visit to change meters at one site I was at saw a non-DNO export meter that had clocked up 14,000+ KWh in just 4 months!! (3x large wind generators). Export meter (3ph) was wired in series with the existing ones (2x 1ph) which I'm pretty sure should not be the case.

At the time of the visit it was generating 50-60A @ 300V...owner thought they were making a killing till I pointed out that the two normal meters were going backwards at a great rate of knots, and there may be some explaining to do to their supplier once the meter read is given (assuming both have gone back 7,000 units each).

furndire

espresso wrote: »

Can you post a picture showing your main electricity meter and the associated cables?

I'll have a go at that later.

Dunloadin - certainly makes light of my problems. What is DNO?

furndire

I hope this works The mains meter is outside, but the generationg meter is inside wired to fuse box
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1928786532891.111732.1039029599&l=d991c47005

espresso

furndire wrote: »

I hope this works The mains meter is outside, but the generationg meter is inside wired to fuse box
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1928786532891.111732.1039029599&l=d991c47005

Are you sure that you are reading your main Siemens S2AS-100 meter correctly?

3.5.3 Total Register
A “total register“ holds the total accumulation of all the rate registers. This is a separate register - not a calculated register. There are, in fact, two separate total registers - one for import energy and one for export energy.
An option in the tariff software allows export energy to be added and displayed to the forward total (or Import) register. In all cases, the export and import registers are physically maintained separately.
The resolution of the total register is 9 decimal digits, but only 6 may be displayed at a time. The number of decimal places displayed is
programmable as 0, 1 or 2. If no decimal are displayed, only 5 full digits can be displayed on the LCD for the S2AS-100 and S2AS-200.

Source here

furndire

I don't understand the above - can someone explain in simple English please?


"programmable as 0, 1 or 2. If no decimal are displayed, only 5 full digits can be displayed on the LCD for the S2AS-100 and S2AS-200."

Does that mean that the meter should have been programmed to show the export as there is only 5 digits showing

I thought I was reading correctly - we don't get 2 readings. It just flashes from 888888 to the five figure number. All I am going by is the more electrical stuff I turn on, the slower the 5 figure numbers go up ???? When the supplier reads the meter, all they do is read the number that is there. While the sun is shining so brightly, the more we turn off, the quicker the meter goes up, and visa versa - I can't believe that we are using the same or slightly, 1 KW a day less than in the middle of winter.

So far today, 8.30 am meter read 93205, not at 18.30, it 93218 - 13 KW used? We have produce 24 KW - does this add up??

(on the plus side, system is overperforming re FiT payments by 104 KW already this month, and there are still 5 days to go)

Cardew

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=43125488&postcount=302

If ASG, by repute the best 'rent a roof' company, can get it wrong - so can all the others.

I wonder what compensation will be offered - it should be all the electricity generated by the panels at the kWh rate the customer pays.

pauldreed

Cardew wrote: »

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=43125488&postcount=302

If ASG, by repute the best 'rent a roof' company, can get it wrong - so can all the others.

I wonder what compensation will be offered - it should be all the electricity generated by the panels at the kWh rate the customer pays.

At this time I don't know if ASG 'have got it wrong', it could be a faulty meter?? But I am confident that they will sort it out - as you say their reputation as the best installation company precedes them.