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

furndire

I know what you mean about feeling as though they don't believe you.

We are with Atlantic (edit to say Part of Scottish Hydo - thanks Dunloadin)
For the past few days, I have been monitoring electric sort of hourly.

Here's the dilemma there are supposed to be 2 data cards in the meter see expresso's postings. Which should be able to be read - which will then have all the readings on them.
If the cards are in there, they will be able to get the readings, hence if we keep using the electric, say via a heater, that useage will again be costing us, as its on the data card.
If we let the meter go & they can't read the data, my installer thinks that they will have to repay us all that has been generated as compensation.
I've gambled & stopped wasting the electric & took a chance that they can't read the data.

I can see there could be a problem for you if you havn't got the figures for the total amount of electric that has been generated (for FiTs) this is where ASG should come to your assistance.

At least now there are 2 of us in the same boat. Our meter is supposed to be being monitored from 10th may. They are supposed to be putting another meter side by side with the one we have in, but I don't think this is going to show the problem.

I rang them again on Tuesday, and asked them to put a note on the hundreds of notes they already have re my concerns.

If you want to pm me, I'll give you my address so that you can say that you know someone else with the same problem.

There are thousands of the type of meter likes ours, and so I would think there is a potential problem with quite a lot of them.

dunloadin

Have had a quick look at the photos and posts, the meter expresso is on about probably dont have two 'cards', as that is your suppliers normal (or import) meter. Expresso seems to be reading the bumph from the brochure, and these meters are not designed or programmed to be used as import/export meters by the suppliers....they may be programmed to detect reverse flow, read what it says on the brochure about that.

You should have a second export meter, which the one between the switchgear seems to be. This one should give the read of all units generated, the original meter should never go backwards, nor should it record the generated electricity. The export meter will probably need its own MPAN as well, otherwise how is your supplier going to differentiate between the two of them.

Gotta dash as I'm having a quick cuppa between jobs, will keep an eye on the thread as it's an interesting and unusual problem you have.

furndire

Thanks Dunloadin - I did say earlier that I couldn't understand the manual he put up.
When I spoke to my installers, they are under the impression that the meter is ok - so this will be interesting as to if it is on isn't.

John_Pierpoint

That meter boasts that it has a "trick" way of identifying attempts to defraud it.

Wearing my fraudsters hat (joke!), the standard way of defrauding a gas meter used to be to swap the input and output - perhaps the same applied to some electricity meters?

Perhaps this meter, unless it is told to do otherwise, simply racks up the through put of the meter regardless of direction?

As it has a "Continental" pedigree, perhaps it is ready to become an export meter too?

Your aveerage meter reader has problems with an economy 7 meter so God help us with these extra varients.

pauldreed

I got a call back from Scottish Power yesterday, they have spoken with their green energy dept, and they now agree that there is a problem with this meter, so have booked an appointment for 16th May for a meter change.
As for compensation, they have agreed to reimburse an amount based upon the recorded consumption between now and 16th May, compared with consumption of power used & recorded for 2 weeks following the meter change (pro rata).
I don't know if this is a fair assessment, but they made no mention of interrogating the meter registers.
I will PM you my email address.

furndire

I'll be wanting more than that back, as I've been on to this for 9 mths - lots of 0845 phone calls, and being patronised re electric useage.
How long have you had your system running for?

What is ASG reaction - I wonder if they are going to check meters, or at least tell all their customers that there is/could be a problem - if not they should be doing so & b..... quickly.

pauldreed

furndire wrote: »

I'll be wanting more than that back, as I've been on to this for 9 mths - lots of 0845 phone calls, and being patronised re electric useage.
How long have you had your system running for?

What is ASG reaction - I wonder if they are going to check meters, or at least tell all their customers that there is a problem - if not they should be doing so & b..... quickly.

I was installed last October, and although ASG have pointed me in the right direction to get the meter changed ect, I was really suprised that they;
1) Did not carry out any post-fitting test to ensure that the generation was being recorded correctly.
2) Did not and still have not alerted their customers to the possibility that this may occur. Especially as ASG have confirmed that they knew about the meter problems Aug/Sept 2010.
After all, what would have happened if I had not become suspicious? this could have continued for 5, 10, 25 years and cost me a fortune.

Even though Scottish Power have agreed to reimburse me, we will not know exactly how many units have been wrongly recorded, and I could still end up being out of pocket.

As you will see from my posting history, I have been a strong supporter of ASG so far, but this is very disapointing

Cardew

pauldreed wrote: »

IAs you will see from my posting history, I have been a strong supporter of ASG so far, but this is very disapointing

I would be surprised if ASG do not refund everything you have lost.

If they don't I would take them to the small claims court; or just disconnect the panels and put the 'ball in their court'!

furndire

I think its a disgrace that ASG have not alerted people - gone down in my estimations - really disappointing of them.

If they knew, surely they should have alerted Electric Suppliers. This stinks.

pauldreed

furndire wrote: »

I think its a disgrace that ASG have not alerted people - gone down in my estimations - really disappointing of them.

If they knew, surely they should have alerted Electric Suppliers. This stinks.

In fairness to ASG, here is an extract from a email from ASG.
I know that they don't post here anymore, and I am sure that they would not object to me balancing this discussion.

Further to our telephone conversation just now I can confirm that your electricity meter must be fitted with ‘anti-tamper’ and therefore entirely incompatible with microgeneration equipment of any kind in that it will be registering exported electricity as electricity that is actually being used from the grid – it is going forward when exporting and therefore charging you for it. This is what happens with ‘anti tamper’ meters as it registers the ‘reverse’ electricity as an attempted fraud by the homeowner. With normal meters, when surplus electricity produced by the panels is exported, the meter simply stands still. With some of the old ‘wheel’ type meters it actually goes backwards – this shouldn’t happen either. This problem with ‘anti-tamper’ meters came to light only quite recently for us and it is impossible to distinguish them from the normal type as there is nothing on the outside of the meter to alert the electrician. They are also very rare and it has affected only about 20 of our homeowners. It is, however, known by us that the majority of these meters have been Siemens S2AS meters, and you should have been alerted by our Electrician. I’ve just now sent a memo to our Senior Electrician to remind all our Electricians that they should be asking homeowners with this meter to check their usage. Even had we alerted you, you would still have had to go through the process of having the meter changed and getting a re-imbursement from the power company as there is no other way around it. As I confirmed to you, every one of our homeowners who have had this problem have all been re-imbursed. Up to dealing with EDF we simply believed that these meters were faulty and had been advising the power companies about this ‘fault’ as until we started intalling in ernest, Solar PV was quite rare in the UK and the anti-tamper problem wasn’t one that any of the power companies had come across. It wasn’t until I spoke to ****** in December of last year that we became aware that it wasn’t a fault of the meter but was actually part of the spec.