Three Phase Meter installed and Kwh use soars

Reed_Richards

House 30 kWh, that electric Aga you bought, maybe?  The Hot Tub?

Robin9

Apart from connecting the 3ph for the pump - did you electrician balance the domestic load across all 3 phases - perhaps downstairs power on Red, upstairs on Yellow, non RCD things like freezer on Blue ?

roofbarman

Thanks again for the ideas. The reference to "balancing" is beyond me, but an electrician was employed to make the connections once the meter was fitted. Be aware, when it was first fitted on the 6th July 2021, we only had one phase in use, so everything still worked "as before"; it's merely the kwh usage soared. Would balancing be required if only one phase was in use? It was only when we finished the pool installation that the other two phases were connected and went live - one goes to the pool room and a car charger (not yet used and won't be until this is sorted - i charge it at work!) the other merely does some low loads at the front gate. Whats weird is usage has gone up on both the house and the GSHP - it's almost as if the meter is recording three times what actually being used. We will get a clamp meter and try to work out whats being used on each circuit and see what that records at the meter.  

markin

American style fridge? Chest freezers? pond or sewer pumps? A macerator for a toilet?

Ectophile

It's impossible to balance a three phase supply if you're only using one of the phases.

Balancing means spreading the loads out across the three phases, so that the total load on each is roughly the same.

Mstty

Sadly you aren't answering all the responses on the thread so it's difficult to fully work out whether the 21,000-30,000 kWh a year is feasible

Sounds like a big place? with a lot of electricity munching equipment, I think you have been asked about Aircon, hot tubs, ponds with pumps? Multiple fridge freezers maybe expensive to run American style? Wine fridges etc.

Is the house used daily, used as a business? any gaming PC's, lots of electrical devices left on? Lots of high energy devices used inefficiency like oven on multiple times a day. 

The list goes on and only you will know but I would start the whole house on an energy saving exercise.

roofbarman

Engineer called at 8am this morning, he left at 8.15am because he wasn't a three phase meter technician. Breakdown in communication between Eon and contracting firm! Thats the disappointing news, the better news is they got a technician out  this afternoon and I have a shiny new three phase smart meter. What's even better is the engineer was extremely helpful - he covered all the suggestions in these threads, for which many thanks. I'll continue to take daily readings from the main meter as well as the ones we have on the GSHP and Pool. If they drop, then it will have had something to do with the meter that has been removed - if it carries on running at the current level, then we'll do the exercise of switching things off a circuit at a time. I now also have the number of a local guru who can help. Once again I really appreciate the ideas/suggestions. Once I get to the bottom of it, I will post the conclusion on the chat. 

Chrysalis

Thanks, I am interested in what happens here.

ProDave

roofbarman said:

Be aware, when it was first fitted on the 6th July 2021, we only had one phase in use, so everything still worked "as before"; it's merely the kwh usage soared. 

This bit is confusing me.

You had the 3 phase consumer unit fitted before the 3 phase arrived so only 1 phase of that was powered.  So that suggests there could have been lots of things in your house connected to the dead phases, so not able to use any power, that came alive when the 3 phase was activated.

Normally you would get the 3 phase supply and meter working, and then swap over to a 3 phase consumer unit.

And you must be anticipating a lot of big loads to be changing to 3 phase anyway?  Otherwise why not stick with a single phase supply?

Robin9

And me too.   That 3 phase is there for a purpose  - the supply to the pool room where presumably there were several pumps which could not be used (unless they were replacing 1 ph pumps)   until the 3 ph meter was commissioned.   Is this where the additional load is ?    If they are (day) 5 hp pumps  which is 3.75 KW then these 24 hours a day is 100KWh a day


Now you have had your 3 ph meter for a day what does it read.