Red Light on Digital Meter

[flameport]

However WDP say that they only took over responsibility from SWEB up to and including the meter, but no further

They are correct.

Long ago, the 'electricity board' for the area was responsible for everything including the meter and in some cases additional devices such as that VOELCB.
Today the electricity distributor only covers items before the meter. Your energy supplier is responsible for the meter.
Other devices are yours, even though they may not have been originally.

You might be able to convince the energy supplier to replace it with an isolator.
Or find an electrician who will remove it.

 

[steveparry]

I have an Emlite ECA2.V meter for our solar panels https://www.waxmanenergy.co.uk/prod...energy-meter-100a-pulsed-with-extended-cover/ There appears to be no buttons to cycle the reading. Is the reading I see the imported, exported or net energy generated? Thank you.

 

[JohnW2]

I have an Emlite ECA2.V meter for our solar panels https://www.waxmanenergy.co.uk/prod...energy-meter-100a-pulsed-with-extended-cover/ There appears to be no buttons to cycle the reading. Is the reading I see the imported, exported or net energy generated? Thank you.

It does seem a little odd (that there is no button). I can find no real 'user manual', but the technical datasheet indicates that the meter can be configured to automatically cycle backwards and forwards between import or export or to display only one of them -so maybe yours has been configured in the latter fashion (and could presumably be re-configured/programmed).

I also see that there are variants of this meter, some of which monitor import and export separately and some which don't. Are you sure you have the right one?

Kind Regards, John

 

[steveparry]

That is the correct meter and there are indeed no buttons. I must say when it was installed the electrician didn't explain anything useful about it. I asked him what happened to the energy generated which was not used within the house.. He just said it was 'lost'. I thought that was fishy at the time. I did an OND in electrical Engineering 44 years ago but didn't mention that to him. I've since met an engineer who explained how the excess is pumped back into the grid; not lost as I suspected.

 

[plugwash]

How old is this solar install?

A grid tie solar inverter generally doesn't know or care if it is feeding loads in your house or feeding back into the grid.

The government used to offer "feed in tarrifs" to incentivise solar installation. Under these tarrifs owners of solar panels were paid the "feed-in tarrif" for all electrity gnerated by the solar installation (regardless of whether they used it themselves or exported it), so generated electricity, not exported electricity was the important thing to meter. IIRC if the user had a generation meter but not an export meter then they would be paid for an estimated amount of electricity exported but the export payments were pretty small compared to the generation payments..

Newer solar installations don't benefit from feed-in tarrifs, they only get paid (often at a miserly rate) for exported electricity and I belive the norm is to have a smart meter that handles both import and export.

 

[steveparry]

It was installed in February 2022 and we have no smart meters.

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

Assuming you still have your original (import) meter, then I would expect the solar meter to display generated power only.

 

[steveparry]

The solar meter was installed with the solar panels/inverter. We didn't have an 'original' one.

 

[JohnW2]

The solar meter was installed with the solar panels/inverter. We didn't have an 'original' one.

Are you saying that that is the only meter you now have in your house?

Kind Regards, John

 

[steveparry]

No! We have the original consumer unit plus digital meter - not a smart meter. When the solar panels and inverter were installed the new solar meter was installed.

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

Assuming you still have your original (import) meter, then I would expect the solar meter to display generated power only.

 

[JohnW2]

No! We have the original consumer unit plus digital meter - not a smart meter. When the solar panels and inverter were installed the new solar meter was installed.

That's what I suspected. I think what Detlef was suggesting is that your 'original' digital meter is ('as usual') recording import and the new one is recording export (or maybe total generation, whether exported or not). Do the figures you're seeing make sense in terms of that?

Kind Regards, John