social housing PV and Key meters

[Maff]

I live on a rural housing estate in Kent where a lot of the housing stock is owned by a social housing company.
This company blanketed the estate with about 120KWP in OCT/NOV 2011. Most of the residents are elderly and have no concept of how they should adapt and change their usage to make the most of their free power, and as I have discovered they have never been given any advice from the housing asc. Now two of my neighbours have approached me for advice as they have switched off their systems one 2.5KWP and one 4KWP. Because it seems that their credit on their KEY METERS is running at about £6-10 A DAY in June!!! when nobody is home, there is clearly an anti fraud measure at work which is counting the rooftop generation as import.
I know when I did my PV training at CAT in 2010 that I was told key meters were not compatible with PV but I cannot find any written regs which state this, as I feel that the housing association need to put this right, as there will be a lot of people paying for their own generation.
Anyone out there come across this?? or can point me at the relevent doc??

 

[TedM]

It depends on the meter. Some are setup to detect reverse energy flow (export) as an attempt to tamper with the meter and will add it to the import register. Whoever installed the PV should have sorted that out at the time.

If the situation is as you describe then the only solution I can suggest is for each householder to send a written complaint to their electricity supplier stating that their meters are malfunctioning and are in contravention of the Electrical Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 section 3.1.a and need to be replaced or reconfigured asap, with a suitable amount recompensed for any loss to date.

 

[Maff]

I have already said that to the people concerned, I just wondered if there was anything within the G58 regs that stated you couldnt do this, so that they had a bit of 'weighty' ammo, because I guarantee that they will get fobbed off (UK power network and EDF)

 

[TedM]

There is section 4.16 of the OFGEM FIT Supplier Guidelines v5.1:

4.16. Licensed electricity suppliers should note a generator‘s import supply meter may be affected by the installation of FITs generation, eg an import supply meter that does not have a backstop fitted (so the import supply meter register rolls back when electricity is being exported), or a meter that is configured to treat exported electricity as imported electricity (so the exported electricity is added to the amount imported). Unless a generator has offered to supply an appropriate meter themselves, the Licensed Electricity Supplier must ensure the installation and maintenance of an appropriate meter. We expect that where licensed electricity suppliers are notified of an issue with the import supply meters, they will take the necessary steps to investigate and resolve this at the earliest opportunity, treating consumers fairly, and in accordance with any relevant legislation and the relevant back-billing principles.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Info/Documents1/FIT supplier guidance.pdf

This only has the status of 'guidelines' though. If the supplier does not follow this then an official complaint should be raised against them using their own published procedures.

As previously stated, the ESQCRs are the regulations that really cover this.