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Today's Smart Meters do not need to be looked at by the power company. They can see them remotely in real time. I get a report daily on usage from my provider.
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MSEE, PE -
And reprogramming to make it a net meter takes all of one minute.
Still takes them two weeks to do it though.
But they will read in both directionsNABCEP certified Technical Sales Professional
[URL="http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?5334-Solar-Off-Grid-Battery-Design"]http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showth...Battery-Design[/URL]
[URL]http://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html[/URL] (Voltage drop Calculator among others)
[URL="http://www.gaisma.com"]www.gaisma.com[/URL]Comment
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My utility just rolled out daily monitoring. At no charge to me.NABCEP certified Technical Sales Professional
[URL="http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?5334-Solar-Off-Grid-Battery-Design"]http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showth...Battery-Design[/URL]
[URL]http://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html[/URL] (Voltage drop Calculator among others)
[URL="http://www.gaisma.com"]www.gaisma.com[/URL]Comment
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This is very interesting to me. SoCalEdison replaced the old analog dial meters in my neighborhood a couple of years ago with "smartmeters" (blinking digital display, hourly usage graphs in my SCE web account).
So if I do a long burn-in "test" (after the city inspections of course), then I can start saving money even before the "Permission To Operate" notice, *without* getting into trouble? Please say it's so!Comment
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Technically, no, you are not allowed to operate it. If they catch you, some sort of bad things can happen.
But they may not catch you if you're not over-generating.Comment
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I was given a month of "test time". But only needed a day, took 6 weeks of letters, calls, and
emails, plus cornering the meter man, to get the net meter installed. Before that the mechanical
meter had a little gear shift, so it counted UP no matter which way the wheel was turning.
They would just LOVE me to turn my PV on, and charge me for my generation. A couple hot
days, I was trying to turn on only some strings, to balance against the air conditioner.
The POCO let me have the mechanical meter; I see how a gear swings back and forth as
the power direction reverses. No way to make the dials reverse. But it must take a certain
number of watt hours to move that gear from one way to the other (in some seconds). There
must be a point in the middle where it doesn't contact either way. If power were to reverse
regularly in less time, it might float in the middle and not turn the dials either way.
They won't notice if you run a legal inverter at less output than you are using; you will still be
using power. Not much chance of that here. So far today I see 102 KWH, and still running at
3KW with an hour or so of sun left. My use during the day is about 4 KWH.
Bruce RoeComment
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Since I can see hourly usage in my SCE online account, I suppose I'd need to make sure I didn't go negative in any given hour. Other than taping over a panel or two, what would be the safest and easiest way to degrade my production? My system isn't installed yet, but it would have an SMA SB 5000TL inverter. Would there be anything I can do safely at the inverter itself?Comment
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If a cell was covered, it might take out a dozen using the same bypass diode. And lower
the output voltage. I resorted to connecting only some of 6 strings. But don't try to open the
circuit with hundreds of volts, the DC current flow may draw a damaging arc. I tried shutting
off the AC to minimize DC current, then open the DC disconnect to stop it. Then connect a
string, turn it all on. I never tried to disconnect a string (by removing a fuse) until it was dark,
but did resort to the above to add some. Bruce RoeComment
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