[KeithWilliamson]

I think I must be missing something. Can anyone think of a scenario when kW is ever going to be more than kVA?

I'm doing the tests after dark so I'm not exporting power. I don't have any loads with odd waveforms, and I'm making most of the test load purely resistive - fan heaters and immersion heater. We've tried the same tests on my neighbour's system, who has an L+G E430 SMETS2 meter and we get good agreement between the meters.

[retrotecchie]

@KeithWilliamson

Just for gag value, do a daytime test with the solar generating. Read the meter. Turn off every breaker feeding anything. Wait 30 minutes. Read the meter again. If the meter reading has increased rather than stayed the same, you have one of a few L&G E series meters that actually record exported units as imported units. So in a day, you may import 10kWh, Export 3kWh....but your meter is registering the total as 13kWh import...clearly not right but several folks have reported this issues with some SMETS1 L&G meters. The 5394 variant of the E470 is a particular culprit but there are other models. Tesla will not install Powerwall's if the customer has these meters and most solar installers baulk at them, from what I hear.


In which case, you not only need a new meter but you've possibly been paying for any energy you have exported!

[JoeSoap]

@KeithWilliamson

If you have an IHD that shows 'Consumption Now' (mine is 'Cost Now' but does have the kWh at the bottom) you could switch on something with a known wattage and see if the metered consumption rises by that amount. If a 3kW kettle shows a rise in consumption of 4kW then maybe your meter is reading too high by a third.

[KeithWilliamson]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll try disconnecting all load to see whether exported power gets added.

I'm reluctant to ask for an independent meter calibration since I feel the chances of such an error are probably very small, unless I have more data.

I really wanted to get the L+G meter to show me V and A readings so that I could directly compare them with the readings of my calibrated Voltage and Current meters. Then, if they are different, I could be more confident that I have a valid complaint.

Even the meter illustrated on the L+G website (at https://www.landisgyr.eu/product/landisgyr-e470/ ) is showing the very same type of meter showing a voltage reading!

Thanks everyone for your input.

[retrotecchie]

@KeithWilliamson

Earlier ones didn't. Depends entirely on the model. To the best of my knowledge there are 27 different models of the E470 going right back to pre-smart versions.

L&G are the only meter manufacturers that used the same designation (E470) for all their meter variants. Most have an additional 4 digit submodel/variant number which will help pin down their capabilities better.

[KeithWilliamson]

Thanks Retrotecchie.

I had no idea that there are as many as 27 versions of the E470! This one has longish several strings of numbers on the front face, but no obvious 4-digit variant. It was installed in 2017 (I've lived in this house since 1972!) and does have '2017' under the display. The string of characters that I suspect is the serial number starts with '17L', and I suspect that means it was built in 2017. I know that later variants, which are SMETS2, have variant numbers 5424 and 5533, but that's not much help here!
I'm beginning to give up on this.

It is disappointing that L+G state "Please note we are unable to provide technical assistance to members of the public. Meters installed in homes are owned and operated by energy suppliers. Please reach out to your energy supplier if you need assistance as they are best placed to provide advice or support on the operation of the meter or the energy supply."

So far I haven't found anyone at EOn who will give me a link to a user manual for this meter.

I'm beginning to fear I'm up a blind alley. I was just hopeful that you or someone else on this forum might have had a similar experience.

[retrotecchie]

@KeithWilliamson

L&G meters since 2008 have been a veritable minefield and I'm glad I don't have, need or want a smart meter. They bring nothing but trouble, in my opinion.

Not saying other manufacturers are much better, but at least they seem to have much more identifiable model numbers.

[retrotecchie]

Originally Posted by KeithWilliamson

Thanks Retrotecchie.

I had no idea that there are as many as 27 versions of the E470! This one has longish several strings of numbers on the front face, but no obvious 4-digit variant. It was installed in 2017 (I've lived in this house since 1972!) and does have '2017' under the display. The string of characters that I suspect is the serial number starts with '17L', and I suspect that means it was built in 2017. I know that later variants, which are SMETS2, have variant numbers 5424 and 5533, but that's not much help here!
I'm beginning to give up on this.

It is disappointing that L+G state "Please note we are unable to provide technical assistance to members of the public. Meters installed in homes are owned and operated by energy suppliers. Please reach out to your energy supplier if you need assistance as they are best placed to provide advice or support on the operation of the meter or the energy supply."

So far I haven't found anyone at EOn who will give me a link to a user manual for this meter.

I'm beginning to fear I'm up a blind alley. I was just hopeful that you or someone else on this forum might have had a similar experience.

Manuals for any L&G meter are rather scarce apart from prepayment versions. The meter is indeed the responsibility of and owned by the supplier, so technically it's just squatting in our properties and we are not the end users!

I have a few, but they are not easy to track down without the sub model number. There IS an E470 without a four digit sub-model number but that is an SMETS2 variant, so not yours.

Without a photograph, hard to tell, but if you can tell me the colours and orientations of the buttons, that might help me drill down a bit closer. Some models have a square green A button and a round white B button, some use grey for A and they may be vertically on top of each other, or they could be side by side, or even completely separate, and diagonal. I'm nothing if not persistent and more than willing to try as hard as I can to help, but I'm working with guesswork without that four digit sub-model. It won't be part of a long number. The four digits should be on their own next to a legend that says Type.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by KeithWilliamson

it is disappointing that L+G state "Please note we are unable to provide technical assistance to members of the public. Meters installed in homes are owned and operated by energy suppliers. Please reach out to your energy supplier if you need assistance as they are best placed to provide advice or support on the operation of the meter or the energy supply.".

Having found the manual for my SMETS2 l+g meter I still needed more info, as mine only shows a single tariff & I'm on a dual rate tariff, and no end of button pressing as per the manual displays these.

So I did what the l+g website suggests and reached out to my supplier and got the usual response - ie nowt ☹️

I have seen references on the web to a single rate and a dual rate version of the same model of my meter 😲

[wizzo227]

@KeithWilliamson
I have a possible explanation. I'm not EoN so this is not official. I have solar panels plus extra solar panels and several types of "CT" noninvasive clamp current probe around the outside of the N of the meter tails (and something else to safely get a waveform from mains voltage) to record the voltage and house net current waveforms.

If your house is like mine then it is not a meter fault which you see.
The inverter at the solar panels generates something close to the "sinewave" pattern as is used by ovens, kettles, toasters and ideal resistive loads.
That leaves a remainder of anything a bit late drawn by the fridge, anything else a bit early drawn by capacitive loads, and any horrible spikes drawn by energy saver lightbulbs, computer ATX power supplies, and everything else awkward. That remainder, which I call an "uglywave" can sometimes show up as "0" net power. The solar panels have to generate up to a kW before they'll cancel all parts of the current waveform of one cheap ATX computer power supply drawing a hundred Watts. In a house like mine, I'm seeing right this minute 2 Amps current uselessly bouncing in and out of the house a hundred times per second, and I don't know how a SMETS2 meter would count that.

A "CT" current clamp probe around the safe outside of the N at your meter tails to an oscilloscope should give you "about a Volt" showing you the shape of your net current waveform, and you can switch on a known load such as a 2kW fan heater at night time to see a "nice" waveform worth 2kW; about 9 Amps. How a SMETS meter should interpret a 2 Amps uglywave is unknown to me, but it is not a meter fault if that does not quite cancel to zero.