Parental Advisory there is some obscenities in this blog.
How well do you know your meters? Metering and meters really is an amazing and complex subject. We all have meters within our homes. Some of us will even have water meters and solar generation meters. But do we really understand them.
I once experienced a metering nightmare that was caused by a resourceful electrician with some good intentions. When I worked for a local authority, we had an Electric meter that lived on a cliff top and fed a beach management facility on the beach below. We shall call this meter FUCK.
Overtime the beach management facility required more power so the size of the supply was increased which necessitated a meter change. Meter FUCK was removed by the energy supplier and replaced by meter MIND. Rather unusually meter FUCK was left sat in the bottom of the meter cabinet.
The beach management facility also included a café and shop that wasn’t run by the local authority but was fed through meter MIND. At some point later a local authority electrician found meter FUCK and thought it would be a good idea to use this redundant meter as a sub meter for the café/shop. This way the café/shop could be accurately billed by the local authority for their portion of the electric consumption.
This all makes good sense. But many of us will be (well) aware that the road to fuckery is paved with best intentions. Unfortunately, the energy supplier had logged the installation of meter MIND but had not received the data flows to indicate that meter FUCK had been disconnected. Data flows is the term used by energy suppliers for receiving information. I know…..
Tough code to crack
This meant that for a period of 3 years the local authority was double charged for the consumption of the cafe. I was literally tearing my hair out. I did finally manage to get it resolved by getting the energy supplier to site so they could see and agree that meter MIND was also feeding meter FUCK.
This is a good example of how reliant energy suppliers are on data flows. The frustration (mind fuck) for me was being constantly told that I was wrong by someone who was sat in front of a computer screen viewing out of date data.
I had a similar situation when a building containing some 30 odd electric meters was knocked down and half the suppliers didn’t receive the data flows. As a result they continued to bill on meters that were no longer there. This makes me realise how important the administration of data is in this industry. However, this is not a blog on data. This is a blog on meters.
Stay on point Jeremy!!!!!
Time for another example. I once knew a sports centre whose electric consumption appeared to be incredibly efficient. However, it wasn’t efficient at all. It did some incredibly stupid things with energy such as having heating and cooling system fighting each other. It also had two sports halls full of halogen high bay lighting.
Can you imagine an electric meter not being set up correctly?
Its monthly consumption was half of what it should have been. I suspected this was because its electric meter had been set up incorrectly. Yes I said that. Can you imagine an electric meter not being set up correctly??? By this I mean the installing engineers had applied incorrect CT ratios.
When a meter is installed onto a large supply such as a sports centre the meter will measure the current flowing via a CT that is clamped on to each phase of supply. The meter will then record this flow based on the CT ratio programmed into the meter by the installing engineer. CT ratios are set up according to the size of the CT’s.
If the engineer applies an incorrect CT ratio the consumption will be recorded inaccurately. Which means the customer is either over or under charged. In the case of the sports centre the meter was under recording.
Some years later the energy supplier decided to change the electric meter and over night the sports centre’s electric consumption doubled. When this happened, I got the supplier back to test the calibration of the new meter.
The outcome of this was the new meter was proved to be recording correctly. The old meter which was (definitely) under recording was never picked up on by the supplier. I can only assume they didn’t receive any data flows.
Where did this spectrum come from?
With so many things in life it would appear there is a spectrum. You often here people talking about the spectrum of this and that. For example if you want to view the spectrum of moronity I will gladly introduce you to some of my coffee buddies.
If you are reading this and are someone I grab a coffee with don't worry I am not referring to you. Unless of course you are a 50 something electrician called Steve.
Is Moronity a word???? If it isn’t it should be !!!
Electric meters and perhaps more so the administration of the accounts they service all sit somewhere on a spectrum of accuracy. To be fair the (vast) majority of them operate perfectly well. However, if it is possible for an electric meter to under consume because of incorrect CT’s then it must also be possible for an electric meter to over consume for the same reason.
Ever thought your electric consumption too high???
At one end of the spectrum. I have known electric meters to be continually billed, years after they have been removed and the building, they lived in has been demolished. Whilst at the other end of the spectrum I have also known electric meters who have mysteriously stopped being billed because the supplier has mistakenly recorded them as disconnected.
Electric meters are incredible pieces of equipment and on the whole they do work correctly. However, writing this now I realise I have probably known around 3,000 electric meters. I have a had around ten experiences of electric meters not operating correctly for a variety of reasons.
Therefore in my experience I have learned that (on a scale of) 1 in 300 electric meters isn’t recording consumption correctly. With over 25 million electric meters in the UK the potential for inaccuracy is staggering.
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