My consumer unit keeps tripping, is this connected to the smart meter?

I have a couple of comments:

1: I don’t think we have enough evidence to suggest that all RCBOs with an earth connection can be affected by Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) from a Smart Meter. For the sake of non-technical readers, let’s establish that we’re discussing trips which have a test button on them:

It might be valid to suggest a hypothesis to the effect of:

There is a possibility that a Smart Meter in close proximity to a Consumer Unit with RCBOs or RCDs could decrease the threshold at which the unit will trip. This issue might be more likely to affect trips with a separate earth connection wire.

That’s still quite a long way from the statement from @JohnatPreston but allows others to find this Topic if they’re struggling with a similar problem.

Even so, I still have a number of misgivings:

a: The total radio-frequency transmission power from a Smart Meter Communications Hub is less than 0.5W. Since this radiates omni-directionally, the proportion of this available to reach an earth wire 600mm away is less than 1-millionth. That doesn’t seem to me enough energy to adversely affect a trip.

b: An earth wire is, by definition, connected to earth! So any radiation received will be clamped by the enormously larger body of matter at the same potential-difference… the planet! So if I wanted to make the earth wire from an RCBO act as an aerial, I’d first have to disconnect it from the earth-block in the consumer unit, and leave it “floating”.

So the incident which @JohnatPreston refers to might be due to an incorrectly-installed earth cable rather than the Smart Meter per se.

c: It’s important to identify the manufacturer of the RCBO which was involved. There is actually quite a bit of difference in the way that these units are constructed internally.

2: Covering a Smart Meter in aluminium foil is to be strongly discouraged. Firstly it can block out the radio transmissions required for both the Wide Area Network and the Home Area Network.

Secondly, foil is conductive and no one should be placing metal surfaces around equipment that handles 230v AC!

If the above hypothesis were to be tested, then the correct/safe way to do so would be with an earthed sheet of mesh between the Smart Meter and the Consumer Unit. This acts as a Faraday cage. And if you don’t understand what this is or how to select the correct dimensions for the mesh wires, then you shouldn’t be doing this experiment anyway!

Yep the other RCBOs look just like the Lewden you posted.  I think it’s very probable that the other one is also a Lewden given they were all fitted by the same contractor.

I have just moved an MCG C10 RCBO out of an external meter enclosure to make way for a new SMART meter. The existing RCBO was re sited directly below the meter enclosure.

The RCBO controls external lighting and has worked with no issues for years, now all of a sudden following the installation of the SMART meter the customer is complaining about the RCBO tripping during the night. (time unknown).

The installation for the lighting has no faults and checks out correctly.

It is too coincidental that since the installation of the SMART meter that the customer is experiencing problems. 

I have had similar instances where SMART meters have been installed and have conducted a full mA survey of appliances and found nothing un towards and we could only put it down to the SMART meter and the type of RCD. I think on this occasion it was an old style MEM where you push it down to reset it before pushing it back up. 

My question is are there any RCBOs out there that are known NOT to be affected by SMART meters? 

In the end I replaced my consumer unit with a new fusebox brand one and matching rcbos.

Not had any tripping since so I'm 100% sure the smart meter was causing my older ones to trip. 

Agreed. The best way to avoid this problem is to replace older units. Those that are extremely old are more likely to be vulnerable to this problem than newer ones.

All cases will be different considering individual situations, extraneous signals and enclosures. My DB uses Danson devices all through - the smart meter is 6 inches away and I’ve never had a problem with false switching. On the few that I’ve seen, it has been down to an early trigger (mA) on a trip.

Just FYI

I am a bit wary, as @BPLightlog says situations vary, plus it is not always easy to identify accurate info on forum.

Anyway in case it helps, I have seen the over night tripping reported before, with energy supplier engineers saying the tripping is happening when the smart meter transmits data over night. They said they tested it by requesting data from the smart meter during the day. 

So the example you posted isn't unique. 

When plugging in any socket, the RCBO is tripping and I can't switch on the fridge as it doesn't happen over night. It happens everytime when I plug in wover, fridge and TV.

It’s possible that the RCBO is too sensitive. They are designed to trip on mA leakage currents but sometimes can trip at a lower level than they should. An electrician can test it for that

Since getting a smart meter installed (OVO recommended as we have storage heaters and are on an economy tarriff, which will be affected next year when the RTS signal ceases)  one of the switches on our CU keeps tripping intermittently.  It seems to be the circuit for our kitchen as when it trips all the appliances don’t work.  We had an OVO engineer out yesterday and he moved part of the meter further away from the CU but that hasn’t made any difference.  I apologise for not using correct terminology, I know nothing at all about electricity supply.