Smart meter problem

[Yorkshire_lad]

Hi,
I am trying to get a new electric smart meter fitted but, after 6 months, am getting nowhere. Wondered if any of you have had similar issues and/or suggestions I may not have considered.
To briefly outline the problem:

• I have an old SMETS1 meter which used to work but has now gone “dumb”.
• I contacted my electricity company (Octopus) who told me it would take about 6 weeks to fit a new SMETS2 meter.
• After waiting the 6 weeks with no progress I started chasing Octopus who advised that actually they couldn’t fit a new SMETS2 meter because:
  1. I live within a certain distance of Fylingdales RAF listening post and the frequency used by SMETS2 meters interferes with their equipment. No one will clarify what the distance limit is - I am about 25km as the crow flies.
     Apparently this issue is being dealt with. An alternate frequency SMETS2 meter is being released which is meant to solve this.
  2. SMETS2 meters rely on a WAN to communicate data. In the north of the UK this WAN is provided by a company called Arqiva who are managed by DCC (Data communications company), both government appointed. Octopus have advised that there is no WAN coverage in my area and Arqiva/DCC have no plan to extend the network to provide one. Neither Arqiva nor DCC will communicate in any way with the public so I am unable to verify this or get any more info.
     There appears to be no fix for this problem and, without WAN coverage any new SMETS2 meter will not work.
  3. Octopus have advised that there is a program to migrate old SMETS1 meters to make them “smart” again which may be a solution but again, I can find no information about progress or expected timelines for this. All Octopus can advise is for me to wait until the end of the year and see if I have been migrated.

Have any of you experienced anything similar or got any suggestions? I am keen to get a smart meter asap as I have invested fairly heavily in PV solar and without one I’m not getting paid anything for electricity exported back to the grid as they can’t measure it!

 

[Swwils]

You will be stuck for some time.

Your unique location has been in the news, rollout was officially stopped and I think 300 homes are trialing a 454MHz meter instead of the standard 422-424MHz.

Difficult 422 locations have a large T2 antenna or a mesh comms hub that can be installed, unknown for 454.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am trying to get a new electric smart meter fitted but, after 6 months, am getting nowhere. Wondered if any of you have had similar issues and/or suggestions I may not have considered.
To briefly outline the problem:

No such problems here, but I have been kept waiting for an upgrade from SMETS 1 to SMETS 2 for the past three years. During that time, when I have pestered them, all they have offered is promises and excuses.

 

[JohnW2]

Have any of you experienced anything similar or got any suggestions? I am keen to get a smart meter asap as I have invested fairly heavily in PV solar and without one I’m not getting paid anything for electricity exported back to the grid as they can’t measure it!

I'm no expert, but I don't think that you need to have a 'smart' (aka 'stupid'!!) meter in order for export to be metered. Maybe rather than hoping/waiting for a 'smart' meter which works in your location, maybe you should be asking for it no be changed for a non-'smart' one?

I'm sure others know far more about this than I do, but, although the facility is not used (since i have no PV generation), my non-'smart' meter certainly has the ability to meter export as well as import.

Kind Regards,John

 

[Old Salt]

I am with Octopus and have a smets2 meter that has never communicated with the “in home display” although it does communicate with Octopus.

Its my own fault as I used to work for edf and finished my time with them working on the smart meter project. I should have known better but you live and learn.

Your only course of action is to either ask to speak to the senior manager who has responsibility for delivering the solution for Octopus or complain to Ofgem, in writing, that Octopus are not keeping you informed of progress.

It may not help but Ofgem should hopefully give you chapter and verse on the cause and likelihood of a solution/timescale or at least give you a name to contact.

 

[Jackrae]

Yesterday, following an invitation from my supplier, EDF, I phoned them to book a smart meter installation. Everything ground to a halt when I stated I had a 3-phase supply. When I enquired why they couldn't supply, they stated they didn't have SMET2 3-phase smart meters. I find it extraordinary that they seem to have overlooked such a simple requirement.

 

[SUNRAY]

Yesterday, following an invitation from my supplier, EDF, I phoned them to book a smart meter installation. Everything ground to a halt when I stated I had a 3-phase supply. When I enquired why they couldn't supply, they stated they didn't have SMET2 3-phase smart meters. I find it extraordinary that they seem to have overlooked such a simple requirement.

There are SMET2 3-phase smart meters.

 

[ericmark]

I remember when an apprentice 1970's seeing the meter at work running backwards, it was cured by swapping the three single phase meters for a three phase meter, it seems the welding sets were causing it to go into reverse.

I have never worked out how a meter works out which way power is travelling, I assume voltage, but never tried to reverse engineer a meter, never been in a position where some where I worked exported electric, but even in my dad's day he was exporting electric to the national grid so there must be a way.

Since the SMETS1 did measure power in both directions there is no reason that should change just because it can't connect to base.

 

[SUNRAY]

Motors basically consist of 2 coils which set up a magnetic field when a current passes through them.
Remember back to your schooldays where opposite poles attract and like poles repel?
When the current through a coil is reversed, the magnetic field is also reversed. That will make the motor (Meter) run in the opposite direction.

 

[JohnW2]

Motors basically consist of 2 coils which set up a magnetic field when a current passes through them. Remember back to your schooldays where opposite poles attract and like poles repel? When the current through a coil is reversed, the magnetic field is also reversed. That will make the motor (Meter) run in the opposite direction.

It's not quite that simple. That thinking works fine with DC, but what happens every 1/100th of a second with (50Hz) AC? - the direction of current flow reverses every 1/100th second, but the direction of rotation of an AC motor doesn't yo-yo at that rate

Kind Regards, John

 

[plugwash]

There are various types of motor.

Permanent magnet DC motors have a permanent magnet creating the field, and moving coils supplied by a commutator, this which keeps the field created by the coil at an angle to the field from the permanent magnet producing a rotation moment. To reverse them you reverse the supply polariy.

Universal motors have both moving and static coils, but are otherwise similar to the permanent magnet DC motor. To reverse them you reverse the supply to one of the two coils, if you reverse the supply to both coils then the motor keeps turning in the same direction. This allows them to run off both DC and AC.

It strikes me that if you built something along the lines of a universal motor, and powered one coil from the voltage and the other coil from the current, then it's rotation direction would depend on the direction of power flow.

 

[SUNRAY]

It's not quite that simple. That thinking works fine with DC, but what happens every 1/100th of a second with (50Hz) AC? - the direction of current flow reverses every 1/100th second, but the direction of rotation of an AC motor doesn't yo-yo at that rate

Kind Regards, John

Good question, one has to start by taking a snapshot at a moment in time, there are 2 options:

That explains the reversing action.
As a DC motor turns the commutator will cause the current in the armature to reverse as the magnetic poles are in the matching position.
That same motor should work on AC too as the current direction is always in the same direction in both coils but the commutator still reverses the armature current as appropriate.

 

[SUNRAY]

Good question, one has to start by taking a snapshot at a moment in time, there are 2 options:
View attachment 265180
That explains the reversing action.
As a DC motor turns the commutator will cause the current in the armature to reverse as the magnetic poles are in the matching position.
That same motor should work on AC too as the current direction is always in the same direction in both coils but the commutator still reverses the armature current as appropriate.

I realise what I have written sounds like gobbledygoop.
This is one of those situations where I say there is so much information out there you can find it and understand from it how a universal motor works quicker (and better) than I can describe it.

 

[JohnW2]

It strikes me that if you built something along the lines of a universal motor, and powered one coil from the voltage and the other coil from the current, then it's rotation direction would depend on the direction of power flow.

Exactly- that's how I've always understood that such things work. Sunray was, I suppose, fairly close in what he suggested, but he did not make the crucial point that there were two coils, powered in different ways.

With what you and I are talking about, it's essentially the phase difference between the currents in the two coils which achieves the desired result(even in the one 'powered by voltage', it is the resultant current through the coil that matters).

Kind Regards, John

 

[SUNRAY]

I realise what I have written sounds like gobbledygoop.
This is one of those situations where I say there is so much information out there you can find it and understand from it how a universal motor works quicker (and better) than I can describe it.

Bear in mind a power meter is a brushless device which works in slightly a different way and not on DC.