<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Same thing happened to me.<br><br>The new digital meters have two "channels" to measure and bill for power.<br>Standard meters read power flow through either channel as "consumed"<br>power, and will charge accordingly. That way, if a meter is turned over<br>by a customer (in an attempt to un-use some of the registered power),<br>the meter continues accumulating away.<br><br>"DRG" meters for use on grid-tied systems have been modified<br>with one channel to read incoming, the other for back-fed power.<br><br>If a standard meter is left in place when a grid-tied system is installed,<br>all back-fed power will be billed as if it's consumed. Our local power<br>company installed a non-DRG meter when they started swapping out<br>mechanical meters for the digital models. Our utility bill more than<br>doubled. I contacted the power company and
they acknowledged<br>their error. They replaced the meter and our bill went back to its<br>usual range. They also credited us fully for the backfed power.<br><br><br>Dan<br><br><br>--- On Fri, 8/12/11, Glenn Burt <glenn.burt@glbcc.com> wrote:<br><br>> From: Glenn Burt <glenn.burt@glbcc.com><br>> Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] mechanical vs. electronic kwh meter<br>> To: "'RE-wrenches'" <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org><br>> Date: Friday, August 12, 2011, 1:10 PM<br>> We too have had this happen - customer didn't feel he had to wait for<br>> utility approval, turned on the system after we left. His next bill came<br>> & he tried to blame it on us... All the meters the utilities are replacing<br>> here are electronic AMR style units. It has been a long time since I saw<br>> a mechanical utility meter.<br>> <br>> -Glenn<br>> <br>> -----Original Message-----<br>> From:
re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org<br>> [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org]<br>> On Behalf Of Jason<br>> Szumlanski<br>> Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 12:09 PM<br>> To: RE-wrenches<br>> Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] mechanical vs. electronic kwh<br>> meter<br>> <br>> That is absolutely true. We have a customer who sent in<br>> his<br>> interconnection agreement and assumed the meter would be<br>> swapped. It never happened, the utility did not swap the meter, and<br>> energy sold to the utility actually showed up as purchased energy. The<br>> utility acknowledged the oversight in getting the meter swapped,<br>> and they are working with the customer on an equitable resolution.<br>> <br>> That is definitely a reason consider keeping the system off<br>> until the meter is swapped, but then you are relying on the customer<br>> to go flip the switch once installed.<br>> <br>>
Jason Szumlanski<br><br><br></td></tr></table>