Smart meter proximity to another meter?

emv

I've posted before about how our electricity usage seems 4 times higher since the installation of a smart meter 2 weeks ago. In 2 weeks we have used 655KWh compared to our usual bill of 300KWh. I've been monitoring our usage carefully (complicated by the fact that we have to use an energy monitor on each fuse box as we have three phase supply & armoured cables) & I can't see that we can be using more than 20 - 25KWh/ day (useage is closer to 40 per day according to the smart meter).

Previously our meter served the whole of our (private) village. 11 of the other houses now have their own meters located outside their properties & directly connected to a new substation on site. One house still has a meter adjacent to ours (50m from their house). Our electrician has suggested that the smart meter, which is an indirect meter, so measures the current rather than the usage (I think he said) so it is possible that it is measuring the neighbour's usage as well as our own.

Has anyone heard of this? I can't find information about whether this is possible, I am now monitoring the neighbour's usage too to see if the extra they are using could account for the difference.

Em

[Deleted User]

What about trying a usage test on the electric..a one kwhr bar on an electric fire for one hour, with everything else off, including fridges.should use one unit only..not 4 .

ChumpusRex

It is irrelevant if the smart meter is a direct meter or a current transformer (CT) meter. The difference is that normal home electrical supplies are all roughly the same size, so there is a standard model of meter with built-in sensors.

3 phase supplies come in all sizes, from a big house, to a office, to a big factory. Instead of having 20 different meter designs depending on size, industrial meters come in two parts: a standard meter and a sensor (called a current transformer). The same meter can be used for a house or a factory, only the sensor needs to be different.

If your neighbour's electricity is wired into your house, then that is an issue with your wiring, and nothing to do with your meter. The easy way to tell, is to turn off your electricity completely. Does the neighbour's electricity go off?

emv

Thanks for the info, ChumpusRex. I know our smart meter details - it's an EDMI Atlas mk10a, but not sure of more than that.

We have a switch room adjoining our meter room - about 7 switches for our properties & 2 for that neighbour then 8 or so for other properties. All of these were wired into our meter, but all other neighbours apart from this one now have a new supply direct from the substation. Presumably yes,if I flick his switches his electricity would go off but not if I flick ours. The meter room & switch room are remote from both of the properties, they were in a building that also housed the sub-station so everything was presumably wired from the sub-station into the meter then into the switch room (or vice versa, not completely sure). I think the electrician was suggesting that the supply from the substation is shared then splits at some point before the two meters. If the Smart meter was wired before the split then he thought that it could pick up both supplies.

matelodave

There's a lot of guessing going on here. If you don't know what's going on or how it's connected and your electrician doesn't either and you live there and can have a prod about then then it's really doubtful that anyone on this thread would have a clue.


You do really need to investigate it properly, either with your own electrician or whoever did the work - remote guessing won't solve it


One would hope that you've got an isolating switch between your meter and your fuse board (it might be in your fuse board). Turn it off for a couple of hours to see if your neighbour complains. Likewise if there an isolator in front of the meter do the same.


You don't really need lots of energy meters - shut every thing off in your house (including fridges, freezers, skyboxes TV, computers routers etc) and just turn a 1 kw heater on for an hour - your meter should only increment by 1kwh - if its more (or less) then it needs investigating

emv

It was more the principle of smart meters picking up other meters nearby that I was asking about, we've tried switching off some & all of the switches in our switch room. Our neighbour's are clearly marked so we haven't turned his off. I'll try the 1kw heater trick & see what happens. Our neighbour seems to be using 12 Kwh/day so our 40/day is obviously 3 x his usage & our pre-smart meter usage was 10kw which seemed a bit low but not 1/4 of what it should be,:-(

[Deleted User]

I ve seen your meter, the EDMI Atlas for many years, surrounded by other meters .I m sure you would nt be the only one to find this fault if it existed.Its a business smart meter and has been around for longer than the domestic smarts and is in operation throughout the UK. Lets try the one kwhr test for one hour.
Smart meters will find out the faults of previous meters.I can t wait till they start fitting domestic smart meters to Eco 7 dual rate meters. The phone lines will be running at full tilt with people who had been getting away with much lower electric bills.