Is that what you where looking for. Please explain all to me now? As you can see, I’m very confused!

Our eagle-eyed @Transparent can spot an arrow hidden in a wire anywhere!

I’d echo your confusion @Mbu1982 - but have been following your discussion closely and I think it’s time to award this it’s very own thread. Take a look at the topic title and tags I’ve added to see if you think they could use a tweak. Am hoping this thread will become a great resource to others with a similar set-up and queries in future too! 

Hi @Jess_OVO No problem at all.  I do think there will be a lot of people wondering the same things I have been asking.  Thanks again

If people didn’t get confused about energy issues @Mbu1982  then this Forum wouldn’t have much need to exist!

I’m still checking the absolute basics about how your electricity import/export figures are being created. Even if you confirm that something is correct on your installation, it’s still good that we discuss it here. In future someone else will make the same checks but in their case it could be faulty.

So if you look at the grey-covered cable ‘tail’ which has the current-clamp on it, there are two things to confirm:

a: Does the side of the clamp marked ‘house’ point towards your consumer unit, and the side marked ‘grid’ point towards your SMETS1 meter?

b: Is this the ‘Live’ wire rather than the ‘Neutral’? (Ask again if you don’t know how to check this, or post a relevant photo).

Secondly, you mentioned that your Energy Supplier is Avro.

Aren’t they one of the smaller companies who have recently ceased to trade?

Aren’t Avro customers being acquired by Octopus?

I mention this because:

1: the change of supplier means that a meter reading will be provided by you, and the usage-history checked by the new supplier. If there have been mistakes, then this sets a point in time when things might change.

2: Octopus have a highly competent Smart Meter team. It was their diligence which discovered why a proportion of brand-new SMETS2 meters always failed when first installed. In fact I had a failed one which OVO had fitted!

Hey @Transparent, thanks for looking into this. Answers below:

the side marked home does point to my consumer unit and the grid to my Smets1 meter.  The clamp is on the live wire.  We are currently transferring to Octopus and that should be completed soon.

Right; we’ve established that the current clamp is the right way around.

But I’m still unsure whether it is connected to the Em-lite ECA2.v export meter you’ve shown in the photo.

Nowhere on the internet can I find the user-manual or installation instructions for that meter. The manufacturer’s own website only offers a datasheet.

The ECA2.v specification does not state that it uses a current-clamp. Nor does it suggest that the meter has the ability to communicate wirelessly to the Solis inverter in your attic. So I’m wondering if there is another electronics box close to the meter.

Do you ever read the import/export figures on the ECA2.v meter?

Do they just cycle around, or do you have an App or other device which enables you to command the screen which figure you want to be displayed?

Hey @Transparent the clamp is actually wired into this unit:

I have no idea what this box is?

Ah… now it’s becoming clearer to me @Mbu1982 

This diagram is a bit confusing in the area which I’ve circled

You’ve actually got two Distribution boards (consumer units) because a separate one has been installed for the new equipment. The diagram shows only one, which appears to be the original that also serves the rest of the house.

You also have two digital meters, both of which are recording solar export.

This diagram is somewhat better:

It does show two meters. One is named “Generation meter” and the other “Import Meter”.

The Em-lite ECA2.v (on the left) is an MCS-approved export meter which is a mandatory requirement for all grid-connected generation equipment. This regulation pre-dates the introduction of Smart Meters, which have their own export registers.

If you’ve never exported prior to the installation of these Solar Panels, then I’d expect the two figures to agree.

The ECA2.v is extremely simple and records only import, export and the net difference between the two. These figures are probably cycling on the display, although an installer can configure it to show only one parameter.

The Acrel AC Energy meter (on the right) is in a position where I would normally expect it to only record import/export related to your Solis Inverter. Ie it would ignore import to the rest of the house.

However, the Installer has placed its current-clamp in a position where it records the entire import/export from the building.

Acrel make very good generation meters, but I suspect that the Installer couldn’t find one which offered all the required features and was also on the MCS Approved list.

In this case the model he’s chosen has a radio-link to the Solis Inverter in the attic, and a selection of 5 buttons which can probably do all sorts of wonderful things! It is this Acrel meter which delivers the data used by Solis for the App which you initially referred to.

Depending on how this Acrel meter is configured, it may or may not record and use the same readings as those on your SMETS1 Liberty Meter. And if it’s not MCS-approved, then I don’t see how it has any legal weighting to challenge what your Energy Supplier is billing you.

Let me pause there and allow you to ask questions if you’d like me to clarify anything.

The same goes for @Jess_OVO !  I’d like to ensure that I’m describing this in a way that can be understood by the massed-readership of this Forum rather than just the few who live in the realm of regulations and laws of physics!

So far I think I have followed everything that you have said. I will need to ask these questions to my installer. My problem still has’nt change though. My bills have increased over 40% since installation of my system. Which is definitely not the expected outcome.   I am currently trying to check that my installation is correct and the figures my inverter are show is correct. So the readings I am collecting from my inverter and sent back to the inverter by radio link and not recorded directly to the inverter? So what is my first point of call?

Yes, I think you need to understand from the Installer how he’s set up the Acrel Energy Meter.

From the photos you’ve shown us here on the Forum it isn’t clear whether the intention was to allow the Solis Inverter to collect data about the whole house usage, or just that relating to import/export from the new equipment.

But at this stage I can see no reason to doubt that the amount you are being billed is correct. That should be coming from the Smart meter, which hasn’t changed.

One possibility is the Inverter has been configured to ensure that the Pylontech batteries are filled prior to the early-evening period of peak-demand. So if you haven’t had sufficient sunlight, then it’s possible that they’re importing from the Grid.

That makes sense if you were on a variable Time Of Use tariff because electricity would cost more when in high demand. But I don’t think Avro offered such a tariff.

Octopus do have such a tariff, called Agile.

So whilst the Installer needs to tell you how the system has been configured, I suggest that you may not immediately want it changed. There are other factors to be considered.

Better still @Mbu1982  - give your installer the link to this topic so he can read what we’ve been discussing.

That way he’ll also see how impressed I am by the quality of the installation

The one thing I don’t get is the difference in readings from the same meter. The consumption based on my import readings, should be the same as the consumption in the meters history. If not, why not? I will ask my installers but again it makes no sense to have meters that are not giving me factual information?

If Avro were reading solely the import figure from your Smart meter (800kWh) but not the export, then their billing system had no mechanism by which it could arrive at the Net consumption.

For example, OVO are still developing their new Billing System. This doesn’t pick up export data by default.

Equally, your two ‘generation meters’ are positioned at different places in your installation. I would expect the MCS-approved ECA2.v to have the same readings as the import/export registered at the Inverter because that’s why each device with export potential must have just such a meter installed.

The Acrel meter is probably one of their ACR10R series. It can be used in different ways depending on what data the installer configures it to gather.

Neither of these meters has to agree with the Smart meter. One of them (the ECA2.v) should record the energy being transferred to/fro your Solis inverter - it will most likely ignore energy imported from the Grid and used directly by the rest of the house. It has no way to assess that because it can’t measure the total current.

@Transparent The plot has thickened……  I have now had my electricity account transferred to Octopus Energy and they are taking readings directly from my meter for the last week….  These readings are matching the purchased readings from my inverter, actually they are slightly less!  I will wait the full month and compare their readings to the import readings and the monthly consumption readings also from the meter.  So far none of this makes sense to me and I do appreciate it has only been 1 weeks comparison.