Smart meter incorrect installation caused increased energy usage

Gerry1

Unfortunately you seem to be a bit confused.

As previously mentioned, there are the contradictions about having solar but no generation, and a battery but no storage.

Similarly, all your references are to power (kW) but none to energy (kWh).

It's very important to get the terms correct: if it's hard to understand the problem then it's hard to offer a solution.

Kateg28

This was an hour ago

Kateg28

To be clear, nothing major was on. However it is the meter reading on the actual meter that is worrying me. 148kw in a week is insane when it has been sunny so the panels are doing their thing and we were away for half of it. Based on those figures my weekly direct debit will need to increase by 50% from where it was before the solar panels. 

I just don’t need to know how to get this resolved. BG were not that interested. 

CSI_Yorkshire

Which you agree shows that you are using 7kW (ish) in your house?  Do you think you have enough stuff turned on to be using 7kW?  That's quite a lot.

And of this 7kW, 3kW is coming from the outside grid.  There's a small red light on your meter.  If you watch that light for 60 seconds and count how many times it flashes, that will tell you how much it thinks you're using (1000 flashes is 1kWh so we can convert).  

CSI_Yorkshire

Kateg28 said:

To be clear, nothing major was on. However it is the meter reading on the actual meter that is worrying me. 148kw in a week is insane when it has been sunny so the panels are doing their thing and we were away for half of it. Based on those figures my weekly direct debit will need to increase by 50% from where it was before the solar panels. 

I just don’t need to know how to get this resolved. BG were not that interested. 

Based on what you've said, both your smart meter and the app (which doesn't get data from the meter, it probably gets it from that little white box on one of the brown wires) agree that you're using a lot of energy.

I don't think that both of those have suddenly gone wrong at the same time.  It's more likely that there is actually something turned on that you haven't found yet.  Usual suspects are immersion heaters.

Qyburn

Something wired up wrong. I'll bet the app calculates house load by adding up Grid import/export and solar inverter output. So if the sensor for grid is round the wrong way it will think the house is drawing 3.044 plus 3.678.  Instead of 3.678 minus 3.044.

Qyburn

It should be easy to sanity check, look at the Smart Meter import reading and see if it's clocking up at a rate matching that displayed import.

matt_drummer

Thanks, it confirms you know what you are talking about, your references to power are correct despite what some might tell you.

The app is showing that your house is consuming 6.722 kW at that moment with 3..678 kW coming from your inverter..

It's a shame you didn't get the in home display from British Gas, it would have made it easy to tell if the app was correct or not.


I am trying to work out whether the CT clamp in you meter box being fitted the wrong way around would cause this result, I don't think it would.

Also to anybody else reading, when part of my system was fitted there was a problem with some CT clamps, the magnets had been fitted to the cases back to front so the arrows showing the direction of flow were actually backwards. It caused some difficulties in commissioning!

But even with CT clamps backward we didn't see this.

matt_drummer

Qyburn said:

Something wired up wrong. I'll bet the app calculates house load by adding up Grid import/export and solar inverter output. So if the sensor for grid is round the wrong way it will think the house is drawing 3.044 plus 3.678.  Instead of 3.678 minus 3.044.

That is what I thought at first.

But that is not the OP's problem, or real problem at least.

Why is the battery discharging?

They aren't exporting, they are actually importing as the meter has recorded 148 kWh of import in only a week.

The CT clamp being back to front may cause the app to look wrong but I can't see how it will cause grid import.

If there is actual grid import plus solar and battery then the power must be going somewhere.

CSI_Yorkshire

matt_drummer said:

Qyburn said:

Something wired up wrong. I'll bet the app calculates house load by adding up Grid import/export and solar inverter output. So if the sensor for grid is round the wrong way it will think the house is drawing 3.044 plus 3.678.  Instead of 3.678 minus 3.044.

That is what I thought at first.

But that is not the OP's problem, or real problem at least.

They aren't exporting, they are actually importing as the meter has recorded 148 kWh of import in only a week.

The CT clamp being back to front may cause the app to look wrong but I can't see how it will cause grid import.

If there is actual grid import plus solar and battery then the power must be going somewhere.

Yes, app and meter both seem to agree that there is a lot of import from the grid.

That, to me, means there isn't a problem in the meter or in the measurement by the app, and that the readings are right.  Two independent systems reporting the same thing.

It most likely means that something is actually using a lot of energy.