I'm looking at a smart meter for our Village Hall. Other than checking that the supplier will fit a SMETS 2 rather than the older model, are there any other questions that need to be asked? I'm half a mile or so from the VH, so I'll also need to know whether, if they supply a remote jobby to display consumption etc, it will be in range.
Highly unlikely, the home area network is only good for about 15m
AIUI you are a bit early if you want that range. See eg under Home Area Network in
They upgraded our VH fairly recently. Actually to settle a dispute over billing. The supplier would not believe that as a "business" we used way more offpeak electricity (evenings and weekends) than standard tariff and had been billing us accordingly. It went to a full dispute and the resolution was to fix a new modern smart meter. The old one didn't help because it has a sticker on saying "channel 1 is #2 channel 2 is #1).
It wasn't as bad as the previous dispute where the clueless meter reading guy zero padded a 5 digit meter reading at the wrong end and we got a bill for half the national debt.
It was overall a positive experience with a nice contractor. He tidied up the wiring a bit while he was there. You don't get a remote monitor for a business unless you buy one and the three phase unit is way more complicated than the unit it replaced requiring a lot more keypresses to get to the actual readings. WTF can't they make them the first ones.
Robin formulated on Saturday :
Thanks for that link, it provides much more detail on the subject than I have ever seen in one place before.
Ours only has 2 phases.
The first Optimum guy was great. It was for my garage and he tidied up the existing wiring and made some minor changes to bring it up to present standards.
When it came to the flat though, they asked me lots of questions but the main one was whether I had access to the main fuse. I explained that the fuse is in a sealed unit. I asked if they had authority of the network supplier (Scottish Power Energy Networks) to break the seal and reseal it afterwards. They said this was my responsibility to arrange. I said my relationship is with my electricity supplier (only) and they would have to deal with the network, not me. They insisted it was my responsibility if I wanted a smart meter. In the end, I asked them to send me a letter setting out their proposals and I would give this my consideration. Then Covid got in the way.
Yes I've been talking to edf and they said range in the open is about40 metres, also they told me the ones they are fitting now can be transferred between energy companies as they have agreed a standard. (about bleedin time) and that the talking customer units now are available. Hooray! Brian
You'd need something that attaches to the HAN and transfers usage information. These boxes have to be approved by the supplier and last time I read the Ovo forum (a good place for smart metering stuff) none had been. That was about a year ago.
OTOH you could just use the supplier's web interface to get usage information? I think some of them can enable 30 minute usage readings. (although possibly not realtime - they might be batched)
Theo
Theo explained :
Batch transmission is once per day to the website, so your data on the site is at the earliest, yesterdays data.
The indoor display via HAN is current data, updated frequently.
My negative experience started with the man not turning up
And there, the experience ended
tim
Where I live you can only take ~100A per phase per premises. The VH heating system alone takes more than that.
You get a better price if you are balanced across all phases.
Makes for interesting behaviour if a single phase goes down. I can tell by which emergency lights come on which phase has failed.
I wondered about that. My cousin has a three phase washing machine. What would happen if one of the phases failed?
Scott used his keyboard to write :
It may be fitted with a phase failure relay. Basically three relays, one on each phase, with the control circuit series connected through each relays contacts. If one phase is lost, it should drop the control circuit out and stop the machine dead.
A three phase motor, with a phase missing, will not normally be able to start from a standstill, but may continue to run. Depending on the load and motor protection, it may well over heat on two phases.
Neutral drifts high and anything voltage sensitive like filament bulbs go dim but apart from that not much. Happens from time to time.
Three phase motors won't be happy if one phase is missing. OTOH some three phase kit is that way to balance consumption. The VH dishwasher has a single phase motor with the heaters each on separate phases.
A 3 phase village hall?
How many baby burcos & annual am dram theatre lights do you run to?
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