Reading Smart Meter

[JBR]

I totally agree JBR, I resisted it until my old Disc type 'Steam driven' meter just stopped working and had to replaced and that resulted in the installation of the Smart Meter which was not fit for purpose and not sufficiently reliable or operationally suitable for the market. My view has not changed, the Smart Meters are still not Smart Enough for the market. They were prematurely released or forced onto us by Politicians that did not understand the implication of there implementation.
When the customer cannot reliably read the meter to keep a check on the suppliers, there is something fundamentally wrong with the technology. I am testament to that and the so called supplier technologists are less knowledgable than I am to address the issue, and I am certainly no expert to this technology but I can testify to its unreliability.

I agree, though it's more than that.
I have heard that in the future energy suppliers, especially electricity, can cut off power to individual areas when power production fails to meet demand, and that smart meters could make this a practical proposition.

 

[Hysteresis]

Now that proposition is concerning, although the problem of supply and demand is a real problem and has to be addressed either by increasing supply or regulating demand. Supply is not limitless.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I totally agree JBR, I resisted it until my old Disc type 'Steam driven' meter just stopped working and had to replaced and that resulted in the installation of the Smart Meter which was not fit for purpose and not sufficiently reliable or operationally suitable for the market. My view has not changed, the Smart Meters are still not Smart Enough for the market. They were prematurely released or forced onto us by Politicians that did not understand the implication of there implementation.
When the customer cannot reliably read the meter to keep a check on the suppliers, there is something fundamentally wrong with the technology. I am testament to that and the so called supplier technologists are less knowledgable than I am to address the issue, and I am certainly no expert to this technology but I can testify to its unreliability.

We are on our third pair of meters, only changed, because I changed suppliers and supplier was not compatible with the old Smart Meters - yes I agree, that part was an unholy mess. Other than that, the meters are absolutely reliable - no reason not to have them.

 

[flameport]

Smart meters do have a disconnect switch in them, which could be used.
However electricity can already be cut off at any time, smart meter or not.
The only difference is it would be a larger area, rather than individual properties.

 

[Hysteresis]

We are on our third pair of meters, only changed, because I changed suppliers and supplier was not compatible with the old Smart Meters - yes I agree, that part was an unholy mess. Other than that, the meters are absolutely reliable - no reason not to have them.

Although absolutely reliable, it appears some of the 'Big Six' suppliers, particularly E-ON, don't seem to know how to read them correctly remotely if the meter was installed by another supplier and in my case seem to be reading a register that is for multiple Tariff accounts. I was perfectly willing to give them my readings monthly based on the 9 Key register, but Oh No, they seem to think they know better which clearly they don't, hence all of my frustration.
On the upside, I have learned a lot about these meters and apparently I know more than E-ON's meter specialist.
I am going to let it lay, and let E-ON, bill me from the wrong register which is to my advantage as the bills are lower, but I will calculate my own bill every month from the 9 Key register and record how much E-ON are under charging me as it will catch up with me sometime in the future, maybe when I change suppliers. If E-ON replace my meter with one of their own I might even get away with some Free Electricity due to E-ON's insistence that they are right. I will put the 'Due Money' somewhere safe as I am sure they will realise the error of their ways eventually.

 

[plugwash]

I have heard that in the future energy suppliers, especially electricity, can cut off power to individual areas when power production fails to meet demand, and that smart meters could make this a practical proposition.

They already can cut off power to areas. Indeed if the frequency of the grid drops below certain levels then areas will automatically be dropped to stop the grid as a whole collapsing.

What widespread smart meter deployment would enable is for them to have more control over dropping. They could drop normal customers while keeping priority customers online. Of course the political question then becomes who is a priority customer.........................................

 

[JBR]

They already can cut off power to areas. Indeed if the frequency of the grid drops below certain levels then areas will automatically be dropped to stop the grid as a whole collapsing.

What widespread smart meter deployment would enable is for them to have more control over dropping. They could drop normal customers while keeping priority customers online. Of course the political question then becomes who is a priority customer.........................................

Aha!
I'm a 'priority customer' as I'm diabetic and on epilepsy medication.

I still don't want a bloody smart meter though!

 

[PeteThePen1]

Hi Folks
I am not quite sure if this is the right thread to join, but I have a query about Smart Meters so here goes.

Our not very competent Electricity retailer, Bulb, arranged for Siemens to fit a Landys & Gyr E470 Type 5424, issue 4.2 four terminal electricity smart meter fitted with an SKU Cellular WNC UBC-TN6 sender/receiver unit. The Siemens technician did an impressively tidy installation but when asked if he could show me how to get all the displays, he said that he could not. Apparently Siemens teach them how to fit the kit correctly, but do not teach them about all the displays and how they are used. He said it was a huge frustration as everybody asked and he was unable to assist. Actually, perhaps it was a good thing since as installed, the meter only showed Total Act Import 0000. No other screens were available. However, after more than a month and several manual meter readings later Bulb activated the machine. There are 32 screens in total and one changes screen by a single press of the Yellow button A, although the third press needs to be held for 3 seconds to move onto the next screen. The same is true further down the list but I have forgotten where. Many of the screens are very obvious like MPAN, Time, Date, Credit Mode Balance, etc.

As a consumer screen 1, Rate of Actual Import, (eg. 256 kWh) is important as that is the amount of energy imported and charged for. It seems somewhat odd that screen 12, Total Actual import is present as it seems to duplicate Screen 1. Since we are also micro generators screen 13, Total Actual Export, (eg. 1447 kWh) is important as that is the amount of energy that we lose to the Grid and for which we do not get paid. Strangely, screen 20 Total Res Export shows 1330 kWarh. I am not sure what 'kWarh' units are but they appear in screens 19 - 24.

Screen 18 Total (sum) 1704 kWh seems a bit odd as I cannot get any of the numbers to add up to that.

Screens 19 to 26 plus 31 and 32 seem the most puzzling of all:

Screen 19 - Total rea Import 2 kWarh
Screen 20 - Total rea Export 1330 kWarh
Screen 21 - Total <ind> Q1 1 kWarh [import]
Screen 22 - Total <cap> Q2 0 kWarh [export]
Screen 23 - Total <ind> Q3 626 kWarh [import]
Screen 24 - Total <cap> Q4 704 kWarh [export]
Screen 25 - Total app Import 818 kWarh [import]
Screen 26 - Total app Export 173 kWarh [import] This seems crazy.
Screen 31 - Power Active 6 kW [import]
Screen 32 - Power re Active 0.31 kW [import]

All the given figues are those that were present on the day that I took all 32 photographs.

So, if anyone able to enlighten me about all these data I would be most grateful. I appreciate that as a consumer the majorityof the information will not be useful to me, but I do like to know what is going on.

I hope that the unreliability reported earlier in this post will not appear. However, as I log the readings daily [just PV generation, Export, and Import] so ought to spot irregularities.

Regards

Pete

PS I am asking folks here because asking the same questions of Bulb has yielded only a second copy of their how to read your meter gude which does not seem to relate to the meter I have...

 

[flameport]

Screen 19 - Total rea Import 2 kWarh
Screen 20 - Total rea Export 1330 kWarh
Total Reactive energy, imported and exported

Screen 21 - Total <ind> Q1 1 kWarh [import]
Screen 22 - Total <cap> Q2 0 kWarh [export]
Screen 23 - Total <ind> Q3 626 kWarh [import]
Screen 24 - Total <cap> Q4 704 kWarh [export]
Energy totals for import inductive, import capacitive, export inductive, export capacitive.
It appears you have some of the import/export labels in the wrong places.

Screen 25 - Total app Import 818 kWarh [import]
Screen 26 - Total app Export 173 kWarh [import] This seems crazy.
Total Apparent energy, imported and exported

Screen 31 - Power Active 6 kW [import]
Screen 32 - Power re Active 0.31 kW [import]
Instantaneous values for Active and Reactive power.

If you want to know what the different types of power are, then see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I found out last night, that my lady friend is on an E-on E7 tariff - she has no storage heaters, no immersion heater and certainly no electric car. She has no idea why she is on an E7 tariff, or how long she has been on it.

 

[PeteThePen1]

Thanks Flameport

That is a useful lead that I will try to follow up this evening.

Regards

Pete