Heat Network and Virtual Metering

danco

I live in a block of about sixty flats whose heating is on a communal network. The individual flats are heated by hot air. The network is a Mitsubishi City Multi system which  uses refrigerant fluid, and presumably the air is heated through a heat exchanger using that.The metering is virtual metering, worked out every month based on the amount of time the fans in each flat are on.

This makes life difficult for the residents, as we have to rely on the figures given, we have no physical meters that we can read, and we cannot compare one day's use with another, only month by month.

We have established (partly through my earlier enquiries on this forum) that virtual metering is legally permissible. But I would like to know if anyone with detailed knowledge of similar systems can say if it might be possible to change the metering so that the flats have individual physical meters. If it is actually possible, would it be too expensive in practice?

The freeholders have accepted that the billing has been faulty, and that we are due compensation as a result. We are waiting for their offer, and are still considering that we might demand that all past heating bills are cancelled, given the mess that currently exists. 

I am not so much concerned with what has happened in the past (one of the other residents is working on that) but given our past experience and their acknowledged failures it is hard to see how we can have any confidence that future bills are accurate. A change of metering, if possible, might resolve that issue. Are there any other suggestions about what could be done to restore confidence.

I appreciate that this question is slightly vague, but this is largely due to the freeholders being unable to supply us with detailed information. Even a suggestion as to who we might consult about the problems would be useful.

MultiFuelBurner

I know it's not conclusive but how big is your property and how much were you charged for heating in the last year? 

danco

I don't think your questions are relevant. My flat is just over 100 square metres. The amount charged is definitely wrong because of the problems, and the freeholders have told us that we can defer all payments until the problems are resolved.

I'm looking for a technological solution to the problems, but maybe I should be looking for an emotional/psychological one.

Fundamentally, the freeholders have admitted that there are several problems with the charges and billing of our heating, and they have not yet solved these. At some point they will claim that all these problems have been solved. But why should we believe them, given what has happened in the past? (which includes them denying that the system has filters when their own consultant told them they existed, only to find out that the filters did exist when a physical check was made). We are looking for a way that will convince us that the problems have been solved and not just rely on their claim that all is well.

doodling

Hi,

If each flat has its own heat exchanger then an accurate metering solution is possible - it would require the installation of a flow meter and temperature sensors on the pipework carrying the heat transfer fluid leading to the heat exchanger for each flat.  Exactly the same technology would be used as for the heat meters used where properties have a shared wet heating system.

If the fluid to air heat exchangers are shared then in theory the same approach can be adopted but it is a lot harder technically (measuring air movement volume is difficult) to the point where using a proxy like how long fans run for is just as accurate.

Either way, there is no reason why that data cannot be made available on a per day (or even per second basis!), other than the cost of creating the necessary data handling facilities.  It would require someone to create the necessary software to extract the data from what is measuring it and put it on a suitably secure website at whatever interval people want. Of course, custom software development is expensive - a bright computing graduate could probably do it in a month or so if it was just for their own use but your freeholders would probably want an off the shelf solution supported by a big company (=£££).

ArbitraryRandom

danco said:

I don't think your questions are relevant. My flat is just over 100 square metres. The amount charged is definitely wrong because of the problems, and the freeholders have told us that we can defer all payments until the problems are resolved.

It's relevant if you are asking both for all bills to be cancelled and a new system installed - how reasonable those requests are would depend largely on how much you were billed/paid, how much that differs from a reasonable estimate of what your bill should have been, and the cost of the proposed works. 

It could be that one or other of those 'demands' is reasonable but not both. 

danco

Thanks @doodling. That really helps. I wasn't even sure that it would be possible to install individual meters. I wonder why this wasn't done initially, especially as the hot water is individually metered.  It may have been just a matter of cost.

@ArbitraryRandom. I take your point. Yes, these details are relevant as to what we can persuade the freeholders to do, but it's all been such a complicated mess that I wasn't looking for advice on that. What I have been told now confirms my feeling that it would be POSSIBLE to change the metering. Whether the cost would be reasonable will still have to be investigated.

Xbigman

I would urge caution. It might be that the decision is made that no metering system is possible and you get switched to billing based on the size of each individual property. That might sound fair but I looked at buying a one bed flat in a large converted property and the gas bill was more than triple what I was paying for a three bed house. One of the neighbours told me that everyone had the attitude that if a neighbour had their heating on, you had your heating on. The result was that the place was like a sauna and everyone paid the price.


Darren

MattMattMattUK

danco said:

Thanks @doodling. That really helps. I wasn't even sure that it would be possible to install individual meters. I wonder why this wasn't done initially, especially as the hot water is individually metered.  It may have been just a matter of cost.

There will be a cost element, and ultimately one way or another that cost will be passed on to you, so the best solution technically may not be the best solution overall. Virtual meters are not inherently bad, in many applications where there are multiple factors in play such as this where they may actually be a better option. The issue is that currently they do not supply the granular detail you want, but as has been said above that is entirely solvable on the software side, it does not need physical meters to solve.

danco said:

@ArbitraryRandom. I take your point. Yes, these details are relevant as to what we can persuade the freeholders to do, but it's all been such a complicated mess that I wasn't looking for advice on that. What I have been told now confirms my feeling that it would be POSSIBLE to change the metering. Whether the cost would be reasonable will still have to be investigated.

What is the end result you want? I do not mean "physical meters", but are you looking for a specific level of data, eg. half hourly kWh as you could obtain from a normal smart meter, something else? You and the other leaseholders need to establish that and work backwards from there. 

doodling

Hi,

Having had a chance to look at a brochure for the Mitsibishi City system, I can see that it covers several different systems under that name with different features.

If your system uses water (or some other liquid, which stays as a liquid) as a heat transfer medium then a trafitional heat meter will work (for both heating and cooling).

If your system is basically a big split air conditioning system then a traditional heat meter can't be used as you would need to measure temperatures, pressures and flow rates on both sides of the heat exchanger to establish the energy transferred by it.

Such a meter is undoubtedly possible but a quick Google doesn't reveal one.

[Edited to correct my misunderstanding of split air conditioning systems. ]

danco

I suppose the only reason for a physical meter is that we would be sure that the amount billed was the same as the amount metered. At the moment we don't trust the billing company to get their figures right.

What we actually NEED is to be able to get granular readings. Half-hourly would be ideal, daily would be ok. That way we could compare one day's usage with another and see if we were using the system efficiently. At present the billing company (Switch2) only provide figures once a month. They have said that it could be more often, but probably only every two weeks, and would be more expensive as they produce the detailed figures manually.

At some point our management company will report back to us, and we might be able to have a decent discussion. At present they keep saying that they are trying to get more information, and this has been going on for several months recently (and several years overall). I am just trying to find out what matters I should raise with them once they report. They plainly do not understand the system themselves.