Advice on Chorus PV Meter - Import sensor fitting

[PengEF]

Hi, All I got great advice on here re solar pv (which is working very very well) a couple of years back and I am looking at some enhancements and things seem to have moved on in the metering dept and I was looking at the Chorus PV solar monitoring system.

In particular how it works by measuring the electricity imported and generated using the flashing led on the meters. Now if I was to get one installing the generated sensor would be easy but the import sensor is going to be challenging maybe. My import meter is in an externally housed electric cupboard as fitted to new houses 20 years ago. Everything inside the cupboard except the big fuse is in a big green plastic bubble/shell whatever you call it and it is impossible to get near the meter.

Am I out of luck or could an electrician gain access to the inside of the green plastic bubble thing? or can only the electricity company do that?

 

[Gavin A]

picture required I think

 

[Donk]

I know this monitor very well, it's also called a "GEO" monitor. Indeed there is an "eye" that receives the data from the pulses of the red light and that plugs into a transmitter unit. Its battery operated and quite small, 6"x4"x1.5" I believe.

Green Energy Options geo's Chorus PV monitor: solar power generation and electricity consumption information in home, online and on your mobile. : Solar PV Monitoring Systems

I good little device, we used to give the "Solo" monitors to customers when they purchased a PV system.

 

[Donk]

Or perhaps you could go for an alternative monitor, one which clamps round the live tail of the PV supply or one that reads directly from the inverter?

What inverter do you have?

 

[PengEF]

picture required I think

This is what I mean. It must come off and it looks like two bolts hold it on. Also looks like there was an orange plastic tag of some sort but that has been broken, probably by the electric company guy who changed it to a digital meter about 2 years ago.



So question is who is allowed to remove this?

 

[Donk]

How odd, of all the properties we have installed (5000+), I've never seen such a device. If the tag/seal is already broken, I'd say invade it.

 

[PengEF]

I know this monitor very well, it's also called a "GEO" monitor. Indeed there is an "eye" that receives the data from the pulses of the red light and that plugs into a transmitter unit. Its battery operated and quite small, 6"x4"x1.5" I believe.

That's the one. I like the idea of the "eye" because I am looking at getting a device that can dump the spare generated power into my hot water tank via the immersion heater.

The problem is I already have an eco-eye solar pv monitor, which works pretty good but I am a bit worried that there would be too many current clamps and they may interfere with each other if I try to get them all around the tails that I have got to work with.

Plus the eco-eye is good but the GEO-Chorus Solar PV display looks way easier to interpret as the family seem to think, "the eco-eye light is green it's ok to turn 10kW of devices on now" even though it may only be green by a tiny bit. Doesn't matter how much I explain that you need to wait until it says -1000 for it to be free to turn the washing machine on they just don't get it. Hoping the display on the Chorus would make it really really clear what the difference is.

 

[PengEF]

How odd, of all the properties we have installed (5000+), I've never seen such a device. If the tag/seal is already broken, I'd say invade it.

All of them around here have them. Never seen it on any others anywhere else either of my friends but I am not an electrician so don't generally go poking into electric meter cupboards

Hence why I wanted to know if it's something only the electric board were allowed to open or if an electrician could do it.

 

[Meggerman]

It does state "ELECTRICITY BOARD EQUIPMENT - DO NOT REMOVE".....

 

[Donk]

I'm not saying interfere with the electrics but placing a Velcro pad on the pulsing light of the meter shouldn't raise any eyebrows. If you feel strongly about not removing the cover, play it safe and add another clamp to the tails. I've installed a wattson monitor with a monitor already on the tails and it hasn't caused any problems.

 

[SibertSolar]

OP - the Elios4You will provide all your monitoring requirements, without any tampering of the utility meter, will be 1-2% accurate and can also proportionally control any excess generation of PV energy being diverted to the immersion using the Power Reducer control bolt-on. Runs on a free iOS or Android app, provides a whole host of data and has a number of other features/functions.

I'm bias, of course, but you might want to just check it out as a possible option