[FRIAM] Some brands of digital electric meters wildly inaccurate on nonlinear loads, and NM may get them soon!
Sarbajit Roy
sroy.mb at gmail.com
Tue Feb 13 14:55:08 EST 2024
Some observations
We consumers fought for and got the following rights
1`The right to get the utility meters inspected by an independent agency
for approx US$3 per inspection
2. The right to buy our own smart meter, get it tested by the utility and
have it installed by them
3. The right to install our own check meter in series with the utility's
meter.
I also noticed something curious. It seems that in NM residences pay the
most per unit and industries the least, whereas here in India it's
the other way around, industries and commercial establishments pay approx
double the residential tariffs.
On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 12:55 AM _ Bruno W <wbruno at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for that info Sarbajit. The Hall effect meters were found to be
> quite accurate in the work in Europe. It's the Rogowski coil models that
> can be way off. It's also possible to manipulate them into thinking your
> bill is zero or negative (without solar panels!) if you find or make a load
> with the right pulse frequency, but getting overbilled seems more common.
>
> ------------------------------
>> Hi Bruno
>> Smart meters were mandated in New Delhi India in 2008 onwards and we had
>> the same sort of consumer experience with bills shooting up due to these
>> then "made in China" meters and there was tremendous consumer anger.
>> 2 important changes were made for domestic consumers - a) Billing would be
>> on the basis of Kw-hr (resistive) and not on the basis of KVA-hr
>> (reactive). and b) The neutral wiring and meter connection would be
>> through
>> a bus-bar system only (no looping of neutrals) and ELCBs were
>> made mandatory for preventing earth leakages. That greatly sorted out the
>> problem.
>> I believe the meter design was also changed to ensure that the Hall
>> sensors
>> were inserted into the phase as well as neutral lines.
>> Here are some links.
>> https://www.derc.gov.in/sites/default/files/Public%20bulletin-5.pdf
>>
>> https://www.derc.gov.in/sites/default/files/TechnicalspecificationforMeters_0.pdf
>> https://www.derc.gov.in/sites/default/files/Draft-Regulations.pdf
>> (for Page 16 of 80)
>> Just for your information, In the past 1 year I have paid a grand total of
>> about US$ 150 in electricity bills for an annual consumption of about
>> 3,600
>> Kw-Hr (3,600 units).
>> Sarbajit Roy
>> On Tue, Feb 13, 2024 at 10:02 AM _ Bruno W <wbruno at gmail.com
>> <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> * I'm hoping some Friam member who knows a little about how an electric *
>> >
>> * meter works will be interested *>
>> * enough to get this addressed BEFORE PNM spends $ 300+ million giving us
>> *>
>> * all new meters. *>
>> >
>> * If interested I can send the full paper abstracted here: *>
>> * https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8077940
>> <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8077940> *>
>> * There is also a thesis from the same group that gives more info.... *>
>> >
>> * The paper makes clear that one of the preferred technologies in
>> electric *>
>> * meters (the Rogowski coil) *>
>> * can go haywire when nonlinear loads are present. The smart meters gave *
>> >
>> * readings up to 500% higher *>
>> * than the actual usage. The meters PNM has proposed for its entire *>
>> * territory is the Itron "Gen5" Riva, *>
>> * which has been deployed in the last 2 years in Denver and parts of
>> Texas. *>
>> * Sure enough, some customers' *>
>> * bill have gone way up (3 or 4-fold in one news report), and they have *
>> >
>> * little recourse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpOhTXV59pI&t=20s
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpOhTXV59pI&t=20s> *>
>> >
>> * I intervened in this PRC proceeding last year, and may be able to get
>> this *>
>> * info onto the record, and try to *>
>> * get the PRC to require better testing on nonlinear loads. But I need *>
>> * someone with some relevant expertise *>
>> * (can be education or experience) to explain the published findings and *
>> >
>> * their implications to the PRC in an affidavit by March. *>
>> * This person would then answer questions from the PRC and possibly PNM
>> via *>
>> * zoom in a short hearing in late April or May. *>
>> >
>> * I have several reasons for not wanting to see PNM make this huge *>
>> * investment (and by law they are entitled to a nice *>
>> * rate of return paid by us, the customers) in a very messed-up
>> technology. *>
>> * Probably most of us in this group *>
>> * don't sweat much about our electric bills (actually maybe if ours *>
>> * quadrupled, we would), but for low-income families, this is *>
>> * potentially very cruel, since the cost of the meters will be charged
>> with *>
>> * interest regardless of usage, and energy-saving *>
>> * appliances typically have nonlinear load usages). *>
>> >
>> * I hope to be at the St. John's gathering Friday am, but feel free to
>> reply *>
>> * or contact me directly if interested in this. *>
>> >
>> >
>> * --William J. Bruno, Ph.D. *>
>> * wbruno at gmail.com
>> <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> *>
>> >
>> >
>> >
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