Electric meters inaccurate?

stevegrass777

http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10940.html

stevegrass777

This is shocking some digital meters are over reading by 582% when using led lights with dimmers!
I wonder how many meters are fitted with Rogowski Coils .
Maybe we should do a freedom of information request.This is a massive story and seems would scupper anyone wanting to reduce electricity usage.

matelodave

There don't seem to be many others too worried about it. It's not hard to check your own and let other people get upset.

Just turn on a light bulb with a dimmer and see how much it uses. If you are really upset, get the leccy board to come and check yours.

[Deleted User]

matelodave wrote: »

get the leccy board to come and check yours.

You fail to grasp the problem.

The issue here is that the test loads that they use to calibrate the meters are not sufficiently non-linear to prove whether the meters are accurate with switched mode loads. If you call the board out they'll tell you there's nothing wrong with the meter on their test set, and then you'll just be lumbered with the cost of a pointless test on top of the cost of an inaccurate meter.

In an era when most electronic appliances contain a switched mode PSU, spending £11bn on meters that are not compatible with them is a scandal that dwarfs the Ulster cash for ash debacle.

System

jack_pott wrote: »

You fail to grasp the problem.

The issue here is that the test loads that they use to calibrate the meters are not sufficiently non-linear to prove whether the meters are accurate with switched mode loads. If you call the board out they'll tell you there's nothing wrong with the meter on their test set, and then you'll just be lumbered with the cost of a pointless test on top of the cost of an inaccurate meter.

In an era when most electronic appliances contain a switched mode PSU, spending £11bn on meters that are not compatible with them is a scandal that dwarfs the Ulster cash for ash debacle.

This Dutch article was referring to electronic meters in general, not just smart meters.All new electric meters fitted are electronic.
The most common meter I see fitted throughout the area I work is a small white one by Landys Gyr or Siemens and Ampy.They cost about a fiver and break down all the time. Not a week go s by without me finding one which has gone blank. Then straightaway the suppliers start to lose money, sometimes for years and years. This of course is passed onto us in higher energy costs. Smart electronic meters would at least alert the supplier of this very common problem
I have never heard of any smart meters acting like this Dutch study suggests.
SSE had to point out that they had a problem with a batch of In House Monitors which were faulty, not the smart meters. However that does`nt make for a good headline to fill the news papers. The throwaway gadget ( IHD ) they give out when installing smart meters don t last too long before people unplug it and chuck it in a cupboard/dustbin..That is where mine has gone.

Raxiel

House_Martin wrote: »

The most common meter I see fitted throughout the area I work is a small white one by Landys Gyr or Siemens and Ampy.They cost about a fiver and break down all the time. Not a week go s by without me finding one which has gone blank. Then straightaway the suppliers start to lose money, sometimes for years and years. This of course is passed onto us in higher energy costs. .

They don't make 'em like they used to

stevegrass777

I think this is as big as the VW scandal,I mean these meters when tested are passing with flying colours but when in every day use if you try and save electricity by upgrading to led bulbs your meter could be reading 582% more.
Just imagine if your petrol pump meter was doing that on small engine cars.
I think this is a big and needs looking into.

lstar337

It seems that the digital meters have difficulty reading true RMS values. Not a big surprise to me as our digital multimeters have huge difficulty reading true RMS values too. I believe it will be due to the fact that LED bulbs (on dimmers) will not be using a sine wave, but pulses. The meter reads the pulses and imagines it is part of a full sine wave, creating the accuracy error.

Not sure what can be done about it.

stevegrass777

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

It seems smart meters are effected too.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/smart_meters_prove_dim/

If I get forced into a smart meter I will have a analogue meter after the smart meter and before the fuse board so it can be checked.

lstar337

stevegrass777 wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

It seems smart meters are effected too.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/smart_meters_prove_dim/

If I get forced into a smart meter I will have a analogue meter after the smart meter and before the fuse board so it can be checked.

Typical sensational article from the daily mail. Glossing over the real issue with an attack against smart meters. Talk about giving your readers what they want!

System

stevegrass777 wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

It seems smart meters are effected too.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/smart_meters_prove_dim/

If I get forced into a smart meter I will have a analogue meter after the smart meter and before the fuse board so it can be checked.

The Daily Mail ran the article as well as the Mail online. This Mail online version shows a photo shopped mocked up smart meter. The original Mail article showed the correct picture of the In House Display which was the cause of this bit of lying fake news. SSE pointed out that it was purely a fault of a batch of the free give away gift of energy monitors (I.H.D. ) which had converted the correct kwhrs sent by the meter to a ludicrous figure , hence the headline. The Daily mail completely ignored SSE and continues describing the plug in freebie monitor as a "smart meter ", its not a smart meter but an energy monitor. We all know that the press invent stuff to fill their news with and this is a prime example.
All UK smart meters have been working correctly as far as I know. Mine has , and I have nothing but LED bulbs installed.
Edit update. One old lady I spoke to today had a very hard to read electric meter. I suggested her to accept a smart meter if offered one, her reply was " I m not having one of them after what I read in the papers yesterday about them charging much more ".
I think the suppliers should sue the Daily Mail and any other newspapers who have described the faulty in house monitors as "smart meters ". The Daily Mail were put right on their mistake but the headline remained and now they are losing money through the article. The monitors are not meters but an energy display unit.