Is my meter running fast?

[winston1]

2 kWh over 8 hours is an average of 250 watts load.

If the main switch was OFF and everything was isolated by that main switch then there is a "problem" with the meter.

There will be small trickle of current through the capacitive effect between the meter tails and the internal construction of the main switch. But that is at most a few hundred milliwatts ( less than 1 watt ) with long and closely bundled tails..

Capacitive current has a phase angle of 90 degrees and is purely VA not watts. The meter should not respond to it.

 

[JohnW2]

There will be small trickle of current through the capacitive effect between the meter tails and the internal construction of the main switch. But that is at most a few hundred milliwatts ( less than 1 watt ) with long and closely bundled tails..

There will be a (tiny tiny) current due to the capacitance you mention, but the should be no virtually no energy/power involved - and I thought that the meters were power-factor-corrected, anyway (i.e. measure true kWA, not kVA) and hence should not register current through a reactive load.

I think this is a red herring. As you have say, if the meter is registering energy usage with the main switch off, there a problem with the meter.

Kind Regards, John

 

[endecotp]

250 watts load

That's enough that you would be able to feel something getting very warm, if it were real.

It really does sound like a meter fault to me.

The claim that "it is normal for that much power to be used even when everything is off" is something that really ought to be reported to e.g. Ofgem, trading standards etc.

 

[JohnW2]

250 watts load

The claim that "it is normal for that much power to be used even when everything is off" is something that really ought to be reported to e.g. Ofgem, trading standards etc.

I agree - it's quite ridiculous. If that 250W were continuous, it would represent something like £300 - £350 per year in billing for energy that hadn't been used!

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

Capacitive current has a phase angle of 90 degrees and is purely VA not watts. The meter should not respond to it.

I agree, should not.

And being totally pedantic the miniscule values of stray capacitance react with the equally miniscule inductances to make the phase angle not exactly 90 °

 

[JohnW2]

And being totally pedantic the miniscule values of stray capacitance react with the equally miniscule inductances to make the phase angle not exactly 90 °

As you say, miniscule, on both counts - those tails are no more than about 18" long and are an inch or more apart for much of their course. As I said, it's really a total red herring.

Kind Regards, John

 

[bellissimo]

I thought I should provide some closure to this topic:

Scottish Power wanted to install a check meter to see if it really was running fast. However the guy came round to install it and straight away said the existing meter was knackered and said he would have to go away and wait for permission to install a new meter.

So waited a few more weeks and he came back and replaced the meter with a new 'refurbished' one. Funnily enough this is an older style analogue type, which I actually prefer as it has accuracy to 'tenths'. Still, that's a funny sort of progress for you.

As expected, the new meter ran at about half the speed of the old one and was reassuringly similar to my energy monitor reading (slightly less in fact which was a bonus). Scottish Power have now readjusted my previous readings to make them in line with my new meter, so all is good as far as that is concerned.

Just a shame it took many months and a lot of perseverance on my part to get it sorted. Also, I don't know when it went wrong, but I probably wasted an awful lot of money overpaying to nPower before I switched to Scottish Power.

 

[JohnW2]

I thought I should provide some closure to this topic:

Many thanks for the update. I'm pleased to hear that the problem is now resolved, even if it did take an inordinate amount of time.

Kind Regards, John

 

[endecotp]

Thanks for the update. It's worrying that these new meters are capable of failing in this way. It would be very interesting to know what the engineer spotted that made him know it was knackered; it sounds like a common problem if he was able to recognise it so quickly.

 

[bellissimo]

As soon as he confirmed that it was flashing a few times a minute even when the power was turned off he knew that was definitely not right (and he confirmed that they do occasionally fail in this way), but the reason that he refused to install the check meter was because the digital display failed when he tried to read it (it was intermittently disappearing, though it only seemed to happen when he was here: must have been a cry for help).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I wonder if they ever fail in the other direction, and if they do I wonder if the suppliers are quicker to accept that there's a problem and replace the meter?

 

[bellissimo]

I expect so, but would you report it in the first place

 

[JohnW2]

I wonder if they ever fail in the other direction, and if they do I wonder if the suppliers are quicker to accept that there's a problem and replace the meter?

Many many years ago I had an analogue meter which simply 'stopped' (goodness knows how long it had been stopped before I noticed!). The man with a new one was on my doorstep in less than 24 hours from when I reported it!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I expect so, but would you report it in the first place

Probably not - but, certainly now, with the IT systems they have, they seem pretty quick to notice if a customer's electricity usage suddenly becomes 'much less than expected'! However, I've never heard of them doing any investigation if the consumption becomes 'much more than expected'!

Kind Regards, John

 

[bellissimo]

Well quite. Even when I pointed out that there were just the two of us in a two bed semi with gas heating, they were still keen to claim that 25 kW/h per day was nothing out of the ordinary. I am sure if I had phoned up and said that I was concerned that it was only reading 5 kW/h per day when I had an electric fan on all day, it would have been a different story.