How I understand a system works and what I'm being told by Solar company

[Mozzerr]

Totally agree with danesol's comments above... except... having the setup as described (most succinctly I might add) has allowed me to ditch our 3kw kettle in favour of a 750w replacement!

Visually being able to see that I was always paying for my cuppa with the 3kw kettle vs hardly ever paying for it with the 750w version is really quite satisfying! Ok so I wait a bit longer for the thing to boil.. but tbh I never notice that as the Mrs. always makes my hot drinks! LOL

Cheers.

 

[darrens1973]

am I missing something here, this guy seems to be saying his PV Output is putting his energy usage up, using 17Kw when your PV has produced 11Kw seems a lot of eleccy to use. Sounds like the Meter maybe adding the PV Generation to his normal useage, I thought mine was doing this in my house. I turned all of the circuits off except the PV and waited a few hours, PV Meter had gone up but Main meter stayed the same so no issue. This is the only way to check this isnt it?

 

[danesol]

Thanks for the advice. I think my best way forward is to continue to read my meter and see if there is a significant difference on sunny days. For example, yesterday I generated 11 KW and yet still used 17KW throughout the day from the grid. I would have expected to only use maybe 11 or 12. It looks like it's going to be a sunny weekend so I'll take readings and report back.

It doesnt matter how much you generate, if you dont use it as its produced you naturally lose it to the grid and naturally get your tariff rate for this. However, if you then come home and use masses of electric, this will have to come from the grid ( as before ) as your Solar PV would be then either at low production or switched off due to no Sun.

However there is a possibility your DNO Electric Meter is measuring the generation due to the make & type it is but if you have an old clockwork meter, this wont be the case and you may go backwards at somepoint given that your Solar PV current/voltage is greater then the supplied feed from the grid.

 

[LightGEN]

Landis and Gyr (Ampey) model 5235 can be configured to meter in a number of different ways, one of which is 'Unidirectional Registration', where, as previously described, import and export energy is added together. I see in the instruction sheet for the 5235 that the meter reading is prefixed by a letter 't' to indicate this mode is in operation. Of course the meter being discussed above may not even be the type of meter I'm talking about......I'll shut up now :willy_nilly:

 

[Glen Powell]

am I missing something here, this guy seems to be saying his PV Output is putting his energy usage up, using 17Kw when your PV has produced 11Kw seems a lot of eleccy to use. Sounds like the Meter maybe adding the PV Generation to his normal useage, I thought mine was doing this in my house. I turned all of the circuits off except the PV and waited a few hours, PV Meter had gone up but Main meter stayed the same so no issue. This is the only way to check this isnt it?

As said before, there are a few meters out there that do not detect the direction of flow, if one of those meters are installed ROI will be far less than calculated, I would ask the energy provider to install an import / export meter as soon as possible or one that is able to detect bi-directional current unless they can prove the one you have is suitable for bi-directional current and therefore not effecting your ROI.

 

[LightGEN]

I would ask the energy provider to install an import / export meter as soon as possible or one that is able to detect bi-directional current unless they can prove the one you have is suitable for bi-directional current and therefore not effecting your ROI.

In the case of the Landis and Gyr model, the meter display mode can be reconfigured via its IR port, I expect this isn't a unique approach.