Utility meter questioned [RE-wrenches]

[William Miller]

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Friends:

I had my electronic meter training yesterday and it answered all of the 
questions here.  In a nutshell:

1. The 99 reading needs to be multiplied by the multiplier posted on the 
meter, in our case 80.  Therefore the change between system on and system 
off is too small to really track, especially with the nature of the cycling 
heaters in this plant.

2. Fortunately, the billing periods allowed us to see a spike in 
consumption just prior to the system going on-line.  This coupled with the 
successfully testing of the meter, enabled the customer to see that the 
grid tie system was indeed offsetting consumption and that their investment 
was not wasted.

Many of you will face or have faced this situation:  new system, billing 
not reduced as much as planned.  Every time this has come up, the reason 
for the perceived discrepancy was that customer consumption has increased, 
and proving this is often difficult.  Production metering helps and, in 
this case, good analysis of past energy bills closed the case.

William Miller


At 12:54 AM 12/5/2006, you wrote:

>Colleagues:
>
>We recently installed a 30 KW system on a manufacturing facility.  The 
>customer just received the first utility bill since the system was 
>energized.  The bill shows no savings on the electric bill.
>
>The electronic utility meter screen 99 is reported to show instantaneous 
>consumption or generation into the grid.  I read the meter screen 99 at 
>between .64 and 2.0 KW.  Each of the 6 inverters were putting out about 
>2.0 KW each.  When operating, the inverters were putting 28 amps back into 
>the grid on each phase.
>
>I then shut down the inverters and the meter reading 99 did not 
>change.  This is especially surprising in light of the fact that the plant 
>was in operation with all three sublimation machines and the complete line.
>
>I will meet with the utility to see if there is indeed a problem with the 
>meter.  In the meantime, has anyone had any experience like this?
>
>Thanks for your thoughts.
>
>William Miller


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