reading the power company meter

Other Devices & Integrations Power Management
1

I was discussing solar power with my utility and I noticed that they had stats in 2 hour increments. Is there a way to read this? I would make more sense than to install additional power metering equipment at cost just on the other side of their meter which is doing the same thing and probably more accurately.

rearden

2

Hi rearden

Are you able to share a bit more, maybe a photo of the set up might help people to chip-in with some ideas. What are you currently using with Vera for energy?

The more you share, the more we can try to help.

3

I do this now, on a GE digital electric meter.

The meter has an ANSI optical data port, so I built an adapter and wrote some software to query the meter over RS-232 (converted to IR).
It works great, and gives very good 60-second resolution to whole-house power consumption.
It has the advantage of being 100% in agreement with my billing statement, unlike other solutions I’ve tried.

It took a few discussions with the utility (loss prevention folks) to convince them that it’s harmless and in keeping with my terms of service.

Spencer J McIntyre gave a talk at Toorcon San Diego 2012 on the same subject: “How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Smart Meter”.

4

Hi GroundLoop

Would you be willing to share more details of your DIY solution, photos etc?

When you say ANSI optical data port,what does that mean exactly ? Is that the same as a pulse meter ?

5

Hi all… I’m an Engineer and worked for a meter manufacturer for 15 years. It all depends on what type of meter you have. GroundLoop has a digital meter which has an optical port (for communication) which consists of a transmit and receive infrared LED. Commands are sent via an command-response protocol to query the meter. In order to do this, you’ve got to have the protocol and often a password (which is to keep people from re-programming the meter).

If you don’t have a digital meter, you can still read a standard mechanical single-phase meter which is the meter with a rotating disk inside. On every rotating disk, there is a hole (sometimes two). Reading the meter involves attaching an IR diode on the top of the meter flooding the top of the disk with IR. Then you take an IR receiving diode under the hole. As the disk rotates, the diode pulses as it sees the IR through the hole (called a Pulse Initiator). The total pulses over time equals the kilowatt-hours used. We manufactured one of these that would put out a relay pulse for every turn of the disk.

A word of warning… Your power company may not be thrilled having electric components attached to their meter… Most will know what you’re doing and should be OK with it. I had one our our devices on my meter for years and no one ever said a thing… But then I knew many of the Utility Engineers so they may had approved it.