Smart meter incorrect installation caused increased energy usage

markin

I was going to suggest maybe the power cut made a freezer go faulty, Or the old meter was under reporting usage,  Before i read how many you have!  "two fridge freezers and two chest freezers"

How many people, computers and game systems are the?


An 11 kwh average seems a little low to me for the amount of fridge/freezers that you have , Its a shame you didn't get more solar panels really.

markin

Kateg28 said:

This is my new meter

The 2 ct clamps in this photo are a little close and could be separated a little.

Kateg28

markin said:

I was going to suggest maybe the power cut made a freezer go faulty, Or the old meter was under reporting usage,  Before i read how many you have!  "two fridge freezers and two chest freezers"

How many people, computers and game systems are the?


An 11 kwh average seems a little low to me for the amount of fridge/freezers that you have , Its a shame you didn't get more solar panels really.

2 adults, 3 laptops, two of which have been off for two weeks and no gaming consoles at all. 

I have a standard built in fridge freezer in the kitchen, a stand-alone one in the utility and two freezers in the garage. My partner owns a business and those freezers have food stock in them for the business. We also have an EPS installed in case of power cuts so we can disconnect from the grid completely. 

We had as many panels as would fit. We ran out of roof, it is just a standard 3 bed semi detached. 

No way are 2 freezers accounting for 15kw themselves. 

Anyway at work I checked my app and the house was giving 8kw, half to the battery and half to the grid. (I have a photo of this).
Woke up this morning at 06.30 and the battery was at 97%, we were harvesting 0.237kW from panels, zero from battery, 0.3 to the grid and the house was giving the balance to the grid. Again I have photo of this. I now have two apps for the solar and they are saying the same thing.  

I go out for two hours, came back half an hour ago, unpacked my shopping and checked and once again the house is consuming nearly 7kW, most from the grid, a tiny bit from panels and the rest from the battery. Nothing was turned on or off between me leaving  and coming back (partner is at work). So I don’t see how it can be the freezers otherwise it would be constant. 

I do not know how to disconnect or change the settings on the solar batteries. 

Qyburn

Maybe shutdown the whole solar and battery system, and just sanity check house electricity consumption. To me those readings all seem like they could be caused by the solar metering being wired up wrong. But others have speculated that maybe your house is really truly consuming a huge amount, so let's get that ruled out.

Have you checked the Smart Meter readings during these times when abnormal import or export is indicated by the solar app?

From a billing point of view it's the Smart Meter that matters, it's reading determine how much you have to pay, so its a priority to get that checked if you're in any doubt.

cm4ever

Ok here's my 2p worth of comment based on what I've read.

4x fridge/freezers can demand a not so insignificant power draw if they one or more of them have an issue - but this is probably a red herring.

This can easily be determined if these are all 'plug in' appliances i.e. they get their power via a plug socket. For the minimal cost of £9.99 get yourself a Tapo P110 smart plug, which includes energy monitoring and use it for one whole 24h period per fridge/freezer to gain an understanding of what a 24h power requirement each unit has. You'd also be able to move this to confirm the power draw of any plug-in item, it can be an eye opener.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-Tapo-Wireless-Required-P100/dp/B097YBXHTW?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1#

(Yes I know it says P100 in the link address but it does link to the P110, that's just Amazon for you, just be sure you get the P110 version  )

Either the CT clamp isn't configured correctly or your battery storage is recharging from the mains.

A draw of 7kW is not a small load. It's a shame you don't have a working IHD setup to display current consumption mode - just monitoring that while in the house would give you an instant power measurement direct from your mains meter - completely independently from anything else in the house - it would also be by it's very nature confirmation of if that power spike was an import from or an export to the grid. It would also give you within a 6-10s window of when this abnormal load starts to happen....

If you could power down your battery storage for just 24h that would help your investigations - with it off, do you still see this 7kW power issue? If you don't know how to power just the battery storage down - talk to the installers...

Best of luck, but this is solvable, we just need to cover all the bases.

Sorry if I've missed anything from your previous updates.

Keep_pedalling

Are you sure you are looking at the right reading? zooming in on that picture the symbol on the bottom line says Export.

Do you have the instructions on how to toggle through the different displays.

CSI_Yorkshire

Keep_pedalling said:

Are you sure you are looking at the right reading? zooming in on that picture the symbol on the bottom line says Export.

Do you have the instructions on how to toggle through the different displays.

That symbol is saying "you are exporting".  The register ID is at the top - Rate 01 Active Import.

QrizB

Qyburn said:

Maybe shutdown the whole solar and battery system, and just sanity check house electricity consumption. To me those readings all seem like they could be caused by the solar metering being wired up wrong. But others have speculated that maybe your house is really truly consuming a huge amount, so let's get that ruled out.

This is where I'd start, too. Open all the breakers on both consumer units and check that the smart meter shows zero power draw. (You do have two CUs, don't you? There are two sets of tails splitting out from that black box in the top-right of your meter box photo.)

Then turn breakers back on one by one and see how the loads return.

Those two sets of tails now havee wondering. Do you have storage heaters? Could one or more of those be switched on?

SAC2334

What meter did the smart meter replace. ? If it was an analogue Sangamo Weston electric meter , a very common meter in the UK, it would have been running backwards lowering your bill quite a lot. 
Solar panels need a digital meter , something the installers don t bother telling the occupant .

Kateg28

Lots of questions so I shall try and answer along with any facts that are relevant. Yes I do have many freezers and have been told there are actually three chest freezers in the garage. Two standard sized and little one. But we have had these for 12 years, since we moved in and it would be a coincidence to have gone wrong that day. 

We do not have storage heaters and the heating has been off since April, we prefer a cooler house and the thermostat is set to 18 when it is on. It is definitely off as I had to test it when the meter was installed as they also did the gas meter. 

When meter was installed the power was off (obviously) but when power came back on, all items seemed to happily wake up. 

I cook on electric induction with two ovens but haven’t really cooked since meter installed as been away or working. Used grill once. I think it will turn them off at the isolater in a minute 

I am not aware of two consumer units, I think I only have one in the hallway but I do have the solar and eps units in the garage. Would they have a CU?

I have bought two of those load checkers arriving tomorrow  partner and I will check as much as we can. 

Current solar app readings are (and I have done nothing to change power consumption, I have been reading):
House taking 2.8
solar giving 1.7
grid giving 1.1
battery giving nothing but still at 97%