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Have solar, economy 7 and battery- Day time tariff charging at night?

  • 7 October 2023
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Hi so I have has solar panels fitted last October 2022. I have 2 tariffs a day time tariff and an economy tariff that kicks in from midnight until 7am. This is when my battery recharged ready to work from 7pm until the solar panels take over. However I take a reading every night before I go to bed and one again as soon as I wake up. My economy rate goes up in the night by about 4/5kw but my problem is every night my day time rate moves up 10kw. Nobody knows the answer as to why and the electricity company do not seem interested. Can anybody help me I now have about 6 months of data and can’t get a resolution. Can anybody please help me 

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Best answer by BPLightlog 10 October 2023, 13:33

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BPLightlog
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What meter have you got @GaryAbs ?

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It’s a Landis + Gyr E470 Type 5424

BPLightlog
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It’s a Landis + Gyr E470 Type 5424

Ok, these have been notoriously difficult to understand. You may have done this but just make sure you’re reading R01 and R02 for your peak and off peak readings. Sometimes there’s a ‘total’ register which logs everything together. 
 

 

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Hi thanks for this yes I’ve been out and double checked I have Rate1 and Rate2 and I am definitely reading it correctly I am just at a loss as to why this is happening 

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Has this ‘always’ happened or since the solar was installed for example?

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So I can’t answer that as I don’t know because we only noticed it when we had the panels fitted and we were not saving any money so we have been monitoring it from about June this year and it does it every night 

BPLightlog
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So I can’t answer that as I don’t know because we only noticed it when we had the panels fitted and we were not saving any money so we have been monitoring it from about June this year and it does it every night 

Ok, there’s a couple of other things to check then. 
1. How is the house wiring configured? It may be that there’s a circuit which is switched on to take advantage of off peak. If the wiring isn’t set up for that, you might not have everything set up as off-peak usage. (A picture would help a few of us check  - no personal details)
2. What do your bills look like? Do they follow the higher usage you see on the meter?

 

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Not being an electrician I have no idea. What pictures would you need to see happy to sort thanks for all your help so far. What I can’t get my head round is if we are using this 10kw at night why is it going onto our day rate 

BPLightlog
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Not being an electrician I have no idea. What pictures would you need to see happy to sort thanks for all your help so far. What I can’t get my head round is if we are using this 10kw at night why is it going onto our day rate 

Just a picture showing the meter and the cables around it

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Sorry thought I had sent last Saturday 

BPLightlog
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No problem. It’s difficult to tell but I think your CT (white clamp) might be pointing the wrong way. 

If my assumption is correct, the arrow on the CT should be pointing away from your meter - it look like it’s pointing towards it. 
Another assumption is that the CT is for your solar PV inverter.
There is a ‘clip’ on the bottom of the CT which opens it. Then it can be unclipped and replaced the other way around. You may want some more information to double check but if it is pointing the wrong way, your solar system will be getting the wrong reading for it to operate correctly

 

Here’s a video about the CT position 

 

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Here is another thing so I downloaded loop energy and connected it to my smart meter and the reading are so far apart. In August 2023 the loop app says I used 262 kWh of energy my smart meter reading says I used 532 KWH and that is what I got billed for. Have checked every month and the readings are miles apart 

BPLightlog
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Do you have any separate readings for your solar and battery system? 

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So my graph is showing I generated 800k/WH in August so with the 532 I got from the grid that’s 1332k/WH in August I can’t believe that’s correct in the middle of summer 

 

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I was just wondering about the solar falsely increasing your reading. 
If you add the Loop reading to your smartmeter reading for August you get almost 800kwh!

If it was me, I’d be tempted to switch off my PV feed for a few days to see if that affected your meter reading. 
I still think that your solar is adding to your usage somehow rather than reducing it

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