What's up with our electric?

[jcalow]

We are a church that has just changed business tariffs from Npower to Eon. We were switched over yesterday and half of our power has gone off!! I have checked all distribution boards and nothing has tripped. However I think I may have found the issue. Our electricity meter is a large dual rate digital one and is branded NPOWER. I have attached a photo of this meter. Is it because the meter still belongs to Npower that our supply is messed up?

Many thanks in advance,


Josh

Untitled

• jcalow
• 28 Nov 2010
• 2

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's probably that you were on a dual rate tariff like E10 or E7 (are there storage heaters anywhere?) and someone at your end or Npower or EON dropped a wotsit and you're now on a single-rate tariff.

 

[riveralt]

Much as electricity suppliers might like to be able to do that I'm certain that changing suppliers alone will not be the cause of your problem, even if the meter is marked Npower.

But has anyone been out to inspect or change any of the meter parts or make changes to your electrical circuits?

If not then maybe you should ring your energy supplier and check with them.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Much as electricity suppliers might like to be able to do that I'm certain that changing suppliers alone will not be the cause of your problem, even if the meter is marked Npower.

If the installation uses a teleswitch and the new supplier does not have the customer as a dual-tariff one then they won't be sending the signal to switch the off-peak circuits on.

 

[jcalow]

We were definately on dual rate and I now believe we are on single rate. No one has been out to do any electric works. Lots of stuff is now flashing on the meter that wasn't there a week ago when I had to do the final readings. It is flashing L1 and L2 and reset. Pushing the buttons on it has no effect. I know some dual meters are radio controlled, could this be the problem as it has now lost the signal from Npower?

Another thing i've noticed, there is a smaller old style anologe meter next to this one that was spinning last week, but now is not, no idea what it is for though any ideas?

 

[crystal ball]

Surely the signal to teleswitches switches all teleswitches in that area and is not dedicated to that one in particular

You say half of your power is off, I would hazard a guess that you have lost a phase, possibly caused by one of the mains fuses blowing

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm sorry to have to bring you such bad news, but you will have to do battle with the Eon call centre.

 

[riveralt]

It's probably that you were on a dual rate tariff like E10 or E7 (are there storage heaters anywhere?) and someone at your end or Npower or EON dropped a wotsit and you're now on a single-rate tariff.

Which circuits are no longer working - like BAS says are there storage heaters anywhere?

Have you rung EON?

 

[Lectrician]

The teleswitch signals are only in a few different groups - the suppliers cannot switch individual houses.

If Eon came out to re-program the meter tarrifs (which they will if you swap to a different type of tarriff), they have likely stuffed the programming.

What exactly is it that no longer works?

It could just be a coincidence and you have simply blown a phase fuse bacuse of the cold and excess heaters for example?

 

[jcalow]

Will call Eon in the morning. They aren't around now though. Currently not working is around 50% of the lighting, 50% of the sockets the fire alarm system has lost power and so has all of the emergency lighting. We have no storage heaters, all central heating.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That sounds more like you've lost one phase of your supply - it's not a dual-rate tariff issue.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The teleswitch signals are only in a few different groups - the suppliers cannot switch individual houses.

Each of the user companies (The RTS Users, or Service Providers) have their own database on the Central Teleswitch Control Unit (CTCU), which is a HP Integrity computer running OpenVMS on IA-64 for reliability and clustering technology to minimise downtime. The database defines how each group of teleswitches belonging to the user-company will control the loads and meter registers connected to it. The CTCU uses the database and certain rules to generate and control a continuous string of messages which it forwards to the BBC for transmission. Although each message will be received by all installed teleswitches, the unique user and group-codes carried by the message ensure that only teleswitches carrying the same combination of codes will act on it.

 

[Steve]

Yes Ban, what its saying is that the signal cannot switch a single teleswitch individually. It must switch a "group" at a time - those carrying the same switching times.

Of course, theoretically its possible to switch a single teleswitch by giving it a unique code, but of course if every teleswitch were switched individually the radio waves would be jammed with signals. Every E10 meter will have the same codes, and every E7 meter will too, and now of course theres energy saver tarrifs like 20:20 which need another code, and business tarrifs with different switching times for heavy users etc.


EDIT: hang on, it says "unique user" too. I missed that bit. odd.

 

[joinerjohn]

Looks like there are more than two cables going in and coming out of the meter. Behind the lighter coloured ones there appear to be more cables.
If it all worked before the changeover then it does sound like Eon's fault. Although you may want to try N Power as well. Perhaps they have made a mistake during the changeover.

EDIT, I noticed on the OP , you did say it was dual tariff . (must go and sit on the naughty step for an hour now)

 

[1john]

I think you have lost a phase.