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

furndire

Seems ok to me, but John Pierpoint is a better judge of this than me - can nearly bet they will come back with a check meter, as no-one seemed to be capable of getting info from the meter when I went through this rigamarole. :)

In the end, I was pleased they couldn't get the data - meant I probably got a better payout than I would have done if they had - especially with it being a very sunny summer!

jkpaul

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Does you Siemens meter have something that shows its rate of clocking up ?
Old meters had a revolving aluminium disc with a black marker and modern electronic meters have a flashing red light; one watt per flash.

The meter does have a flashing red light, but I don't think it only flashes once when a kWh goes through - it seemed to be happening too regularly for that when I watched briefly the other night. I][COLOR="Red"]perhaps 1W flashes? maybe ... at 18kWh/day that would be 1 flash every 4.8/5 secs, is that maths right?![/COLOR][/I

The display (meter reading) also flashes onto 888888 and back to the actual number every few seconds, but again I think that the delay is just nominal, not relating to anything specific.

I do intend to watch it closely for 48 hours this weekend though to see whether I can decipher anything useful! :rotfl:

Terrylw1

They can't get the other suppliers engineers to do it without appointing them to the site and having a valid contract in place.

Also, you are talking about breaking the meter seals to access this data by the sounds of it. To do this, they must be an approved test/repair facility and I don't think any Metet Operator has ever gone that far since they send it back to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer can do a test report but you will have to push to get a copy. Once its gone, you could find yourself in a situation where they won't help you...they love saying they have contract with a manufacturer but its garbage because the supplier has a contract with asset owner, the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) who has a contract with the manufacturer.

However, this is the normal scenario. To keep things easy, when you switch the same MAP is normally retained. Microgen may be slightly different in that they appoint a different MAP than the incumbent one. This could mean the new supplier appoints the incumbent MAP who never had these meters. This could mean that their contract with the manufacturer doesn't cover this or it could be a completely different manufacturer than the new suppliers incumbent MAP contracts to for assets.

Not sure how this part would work.

The question is, do you want to be in this minefield?

Estimation is the norm on meter accuracy disputes however there is another way which involves monitoring the new meter to then use the consumption values to work out the previous consumption. Again its an educated guess as you have to add in seasonal factors.

They've admitted not having a clue about how to estimate previous generation. Like I said in an earlier post, I don't think microgen faulty meter disputes have been considered. My experience of microgen has always been that its a poorly set up mess.

jkpaul

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnston-knight/7507590116/

Thanks again John for posting this :T ... I've updated it again with the last 7 days figures, another higher generation week :j accompanied by another leap in "incoming electricity usage" as monitored by our faulty import meter. :mad:

furndire

Honestly you need that check meter in, side by side as soon as possible to - it just is not worth the needless stress & hassle.

jkpaul

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Does you Siemens meter have something that shows its rate of clocking up ?
... modern electronic meters have a flashing red light; one watt per flash

Finally got chance to check this and yes, it has exactly that and there's even a description next to it, which I'd missed before, which says 1000 imp/kWh - 1000 impulses or flashes per unit. Tonight it flashed every 20 seconds - about 4-5 units per day at that rate.

I also noticed for the first time that when it shows the current meter reading (between showing 88888.8) it has an arrow pointing to a key above the LCD towards TOTAL kWh. There are 4 other positions for the LCD arrow, clearly 4 other meter registers it can show (1/2/3/4/total), if only there was a way to get it to show them! :mad:

jkpaul

furndire wrote: »

Honestly you need that check meter in, side by side as soon as possible to - it just is not worth the needless stress & hassle.

Thanks furndire, I agree and this will be my mantra with Ovo on Monday.

Incidentally, I called E.ON today and (surprisingly easily) they put me through to the FiT team ... I thought they were as easy to locate as Santa's elves in November! Anyway, needless to say he was keen to pass it onto someone else (though he said he had heard of it before) but said that an estimated credit would be the only way to go!

I'll see whether they call me on Monday & try to squeeze something out of them!

jkpaul

is that although a Check Meter would mean some estimation would be involved ...

jkpaul wrote: »

As mentioned in previous discussions a check meter would be possible however I have already discussed this with my manager and we could not offer this free of charge additionally the check meter will only tell us the current consumption at this particular moment in time, it would still mean estimation would be required to create a bill.

(it would run perhaps July / Aug maybe and we need figures from Nov - July) but at least we'd have some factual data to base the estimates on, though not from the right month, it would be a start. Additionally with the Fronius Inverter I have pretty accurate half hour readings (sadly since last week only) on what's being generated, so at least a check meter with that could give us some accurate figures of what's used, exported & imported on a typical 10 unit day, a 5 unit day, a 20 unit day and that could be a pretty accurate method of estimation.

Also, I think I'll get back onto Eclipse, the helpful installation company who said they'd ensure we weren't left out of pocket, to see whether they'll help pay for the check meter.

jkpaul

So, last Monday (16th July) I sent the following message to Ovo Feedback - starting their complaints procedure.

[sorry for the wordy post - feel free to skip this if you've been following the saga so far!]

As things stand we don't have any accurate info at all regarding our true usage of power since Nov 2011 (Solar PV installation) and for the whole duration of our Ovo account (since Feb 2012):

1 The incoming electricity meter (Siemens S2AS-100) has been recording not only the incoming feed but also what we generate (with our Solar PV panels) but do not use ourselves and therefore export to the grid.

2 This has only recently come to light (when I started logging our readings) but is a known issue with the meter we have had for years.

3 Using estimated usage figures based upon (our) previous years' readings does not take account of the recently installed Solar PV system which allows us direct access to the power generated by our 4kWp array. This usage is not recorded anywhere. We have a generation meter and the Siemens meter records the exported units.

4 Replacing the incoming meter now would, yes, give us our true incoming electricity level in future, but would not go any significant way to documenting what our historical incoming or generated & exported levels of electricity were.

5 In my view there is 1 ideal way of getting the accurate information regarding the level of overcharge: to interrogate the only place where the relevant figures are stored - our currently installed meter - to analyse the historical incoming & outgoing levels of power on a daily basis.

6 The incoming meter analysis solution would also give us the data we need to pursue E.ON who were our supplier at the time of PV installation, who should have picked up on the incompatibility of our meter with that system and should have changed it.

7 E.ON supplied us before we switched to Ovo (a change I'm now regretting!) and therefore were also overcharging us for 3 months. If we are prevented from getting the accurate data then we will have the same merry-go-round of negotiation and counter-argument with them, something which I'd really rather avoid.

8 I'm aware that your contracts and systems have not been used for this kind of investigation yet, however that doesn't mean it is impossible, nor that someone else couldn't do it for you. If E.ON's engineers are able to do it, perhaps that would be a solution which could be arranged?

9 The second best way to get some idea of what the relevant levels of electricity usage & export have been, would be to install a check meter next to the current meter to gauge the relevant levels over the coming weeks. This method would at least give us an idea of what the magnitude of the overcharge is on a daily basis and we could therefore extrapolate from that the probable levels of historical use, generation & overcharge.

10 This option would give us accurate levels of incoming & generated/outgoing electricity on a daily basis for as long as you want. This would give date to allow us to calculate what the historical figures were – I have the historical generated levels and these could be paired with similar levels during the Check Meter period to enlighten us all to what level of incoming and outgoing electricity have been hidden behind our 1 incoming meter reading.

11 So for example we’ll have realistic figures for what happens on a 5 unit day, a 10 unit day and a 20 unit generation day. This will allow us to combine these figures with the estimated ones I have for our specific system.

12 For me, simply guesstimating the average level of excess generation & overcharge is simply too open to inaccuracy one way or another.

13 I feel that an estimated figure of 6 units per day overcharge in a rebilling is on the low side but I'd actually be happier with an evidence-based figure of an average 6 units per day (representing the daily generated & exported units), because at least I'd know there was a data-based and accurate source to it.

14 You see I'm sure that on some days we've been overcharge by less than 6kWh, however on days when we've been generating 20, 25 and 28 units it's likely we've been exporting 3 and 4 times that figure.

15 I am not willing to pay for the replacement of our meter (once a solution has been agreed), nor for the use of a Check Meter. As our electricity supplying company, I believe it is your responsibility to ensure that the meter is working correctly and it has not been doing since the day Ovo took over. Although this was the case under E.ON I was unaware of the problem and I believe that they are now unable to act as you are the current supplier.

16 Your response to this could assist us to get some resolution and cooperation from E.ON however simply offering a re-bill credit of 6 units per day is not very helpful.

Ovo auto-responded and promised a reply within 5 working days.

Tonight they called me at 5.55pm to suggest a totally unexpected solution: would we be interested in moving our account back to E.ON? :silenced:

This sounds a bit barmy, as in the first place I moved from E.ON to Ovo for a cheaper (and hopefully better) service! :rotfl:

The rationale was that as a small supplier they don't have the systems in place to get the relevant data from the faulty Siemens meter, however they said, as a large supplier, E.ON will have such processes and it wouldn't be a problem for them, and Ovo would waive the early departure fee and accept whatever data comes from the buggy Siemens meter. :wall:

I asked whether they knew that E.ON have such software / hardware / systems and she said, "I'm sure they will have" ... I'm not exactly brimming with confidence yet!

I am trying to get in touch with Siemens (perhaps they can help?!) and E.ON now, to see whether they do have the know-how to resolve this, but I'm not very optimistic as I tried to contact them last week and after several failed attempts, got through to someone in the FIT / Customer Services team who said they'd write the details on our old account page & when we'd sorted it with Ovo, to come back and they would follow suit. So it didn't seem to ring a bell as something they are used to or even aware of!

So my question is this ... does anyone know of someone who has had this issue and found a company who can get the data off the Siemens S2AS meter?

Thanks!
P

utility_csa

if you wish could you pm me the meter serial number, might be able to advise you who to contact to get the memory retrieved.