Can you supply a three phase smart meter?

Howdy @Dion van Overdijk !

That’s quite a puzzle there. Please show us photos of your current meter, as we’ll need those before we can try to solve this one.

Thanks!

Does that sound right, @PeterR1947 - a DNO permit for single phase solar but not 3 phase?

As blastoise mentions, @Dion van Overdijk, a photo of the meter area will give us a good chance of telling if you have 3-phase supply or not.

In the meantime I can confirm that we’re still testing 3 phase smart meters so they’re not quite ready to be offered to anybody that needs them yet. 3 phase smart meters are coming very soon.

You don’t need a smart meter to have solar though:

A PV installation of 8kW will need permission from the DNO regardless of single or three phase supply; the limit is around 4kW and anything less than this installer can simply inform the DNO within 28 days after commissioning that a connection has been made, if it is connected through an inverter that has been type tested for use with a solar PV system
(engineering recommendation G83/2).

Yup, that’s Economy 7 Three-Phase for definite, both on the main fuse and meter.

!!!CAUTION! SAFETY ISSUES DETECTED!!!

You appear to have multiple tamper seals missing. Please have a chat with Western Power Distribution (or your DNO if it’s not WPD) about that as they’ll definitely be happy to send an engineer out to fix them for free. In the meantime, please don’t touch anything as you may get zapped.

I also note that your meter has gone around the clock at least once. Not a safety issue, but a sign that it might be time to upgrade it soon.

Hi Blastoise186

Thanks for confirming the hardware showing is 3 phase, but how could it be Western Power (DNO) has record of me being single phase?

One more thought would be if the cabling coming into my home is 3 phase but at “other side” connection DNO has 2 of the phases made redundant.

Obviously the problem is going to arise when Project Solar is going to register the connection of a 8KWh panel system whilst a 6KWh system being the maximum without specific approval by DNO.

I count a total of 9 tamper seals (intact) in the box, don’t think is gone around the clock yet which would have meant well over a million KWh in 20 years😀

Regards

Dion

Hmm… Got a second @Lukepeniket_OVO ? I could probably use your expertise here!

I personally doubt any DNO would shut down just two out of three phases, it’d cause tons of powercuts!

It isn’t too easy to follow from the photo, especially with the cables going off to the left but it looks to me as though you might only be using a single phase, it looks as though the only output from the meter is that labelled A

So PeterR1947 this makes some sense to me, I take it that phase B and C are fed into the meter but simply not connected to my home electricity

Below description to augment image (sorry for terminology used)

4 cables supply

3 fuses

from left to right A, B, C

“B” and “C” go into the meter but do not come back out

“A” goes into meter and comes out again,

goes through little grey box in middle,

Thick cable coming out goes off to left to go:

into a (very large 3-way) switch which allows selecting (1) grid power, (0) no power, (2) power supplied by generator (connected by a thick round plug)

2 cables come back to go through the two little black boxes under meter, 1 has “A” tag on it and both of them move off on the right top into my fuse box on other side of the wall

a 3rd thick cable (partially obscured) goes back into the meter - to the right of the what I think is the earth cable (with the black ring on it) that comes from supply

The smaller cable out of top of little grey box goes into box on left as does a thinner cable from the meter. the cable in the middle out of box on left goes to supply.

Hope this helps?

Dion

Hello, 

So yeah 3 phase meter but only phase L1 being used out of the meter. Whilst 3 phase Smart isn't available yet but we are so close to using the kaifa 3 phase Smart.

With regards to the DNO shutting the phases it could simply be that they've removed the fuses from fuse 2 + 3 or they've physically disconnected somewhere, there isn't a way to tell unfortunately other than enquiring (which you have done) or getting the dno to do a site visit.

I think Peter has the best advice about the size of the PV install.