topic Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time in Solar, Batteries & Electrification

Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

quinny — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:56:13 GMT

Can anybody tell me why I show that I am drawing from the grid AND exporting at the same time in the middle of the day. Was changed over to NET metering a couple of months ago.

Seems like a way for AGL to make money, Charge for power at a high cost and give me a lttle money for the export at the same time, when I should be using all my solar and not drawing from the grid.

Please explain???

Or would this just be a technical difficulty the AGL have every day with everything?

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

quinny — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 04:44:39 GMT

I gather nobody from AGL can explain or to busy trying to make the usage site work??

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

jayden_AGL — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 05:24:18 GMT

Hey quinny,

Thank you for reaching out!

It sounds like there may be inconsistencies in the data you're seeing, which is definitely worth looking into further! First of all, we'll ask that you ensure that this is actual data that you're seeing, as some customers have been experiencing delays in receiving actual data as of late, and have been provided estimated data in its place.

If the data is displaying as actual, I'll ask that you send me a screenshot of this as well as your account details to and we'll be happy to assist where we can!

Kind regards,

Jayden.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

quinny — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 06:32:15 GMT

Reaching out..... I just spent 61 minutes 35 seconds talking to 5 different people at AGL at not one knew what to do, even one said "What do you want us to do about it..." before transferring to someone else and I had to start again. In the end the last person in metering tells me I need to talk to Activestream as they did the job. I phone Activestream 19 min 47sec telling me they cannot do anything without AGL looking at it and to go back there and would not give a job number "they don't do that" so who knows if any of that is on record.

The screen shot will be sent in a moment, hopefully you can do something without passing on again

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

jayden_AGL — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 11:20:07 GMT

Hey quinny,

Sorry about the unhelpful level of service on offer today, this is absolutely not the standard that we strive to provide. Thank you for sending this through! We'll be sure to look into things and be back in touch ASAP.

Kind regards,

Jayden.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 08:13:01 GMT

Quinny,

I don't know if you got an answer to the simple question.

Your solar power is Generation and you use as much of this as your house is consuming. Any excess is exported to the grid. If your consumption exceeds your generation then you will consume all your generation and then import power from the grid.

1. If you are producing 4kw and using 5kw the net result is that you are IMPORTING 1kw.

2. Producing 4kw and using 3kw you are EXPORTING 1kw.

3. Producing 4kw and using 4kw you are NEUTRAL.

If you are looking at your inverter it shows the power it is generating not what you are exporting to the grid. See above items (1,2 and 3) as an example.

Cheers

Neil

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

Palmplex — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 07:53:05 GMT

Can AGL point me to the contractual definition of net metering when the house is connected to 3 phase but the solar inverter is only connected to one phase please. How is net metering worked out. If my Airconditioning is consuming 5kw on a different phase to my solar Inverter that is also producing 5kw , am i billed zero or am I billed for 5kw on one phase and a FIT of 5kw on another phase .

I'd like to see the contract that defines how net metering works for AGL and smart meters.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 10:58:00 GMT

@Palmplex

These are community pages.

If you want a contract definition go to AGL themselves.

The answer to your question was in my last post on this posting.

What you draw from the grid is metered.

You have three phase plus solar.

The solar is connected to one phase. If your consumption on that phase exceeds the output of your solar at any given time it will be classed as consumption.

If your Solar output exceeds your consumption then you will export to the grid and get paid for it.

The other two phases will only report consumption.

If you are using 5kW on each phase you will be charged for 15kW.

If you are generating 5kW, but still using 5kW, on that phase, then export is 0kW and import charge is 0.

If on that phase you use 0kW and generate 5kW then you will export 5kW at your FIT payment.

Simple!

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

GregAGL — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 03:29:22 GMT

I too have this problem where in the same 30 min billing cycle I am charged for 1.8kwh and credited for 1.6kwh whil my solar 3rd party meter tells.me.I am producing enough power to meet my needs. Production 6.5kw, consumption 3.7kw, yet I am billed and credited at the same time. The bill costs more than the solar produced. AGL has not been able to solve this, they just offered me $150 towards my bill, for me to go away

I too had the AGL contact line hangup regularly. No answers

All I want to know is if I am producing almost twice as much solar as my house requires, how I get a solar feed.in and a bill from the grid as.well

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 01:10:09 GMT

@GregAGL

Here are 7 days of my half hourly export and import figures. To enable you to read the data I have also broken up into mornings and afternoons.

The exported total is the sum of the columns in each of the rows.

Now what I cannot show you here is the amount of power that my solar panels generated, but this is irrelative any way because it was consumed by the appliances.

You can see though that most of the time I exported more than I imported. However we only used an average of 5kWh a day over our last billing period.

Anyway lets get down to some basics.

You need to take into consideration all of the facts.

For ease lets work on a days billing all figures include GST where applicable.

Above is sample from my Electricity Used Spread Sheet.

You have a supply charge say $1.00 a day, you get paid $0.10c a kWh for Export then you have different rates for different times of the day.

Peak $0.40, OffPeak $0.30 and shoulder $0.20

So using the figure for 5th March the result would be

Supply ($1.00) + Peak($2.07) + Shoulder($0.16) + Offpeak($0.51) = $3.75 - Exported ($0.92)

So that one day costs you $2.83

On the 6th March

Supply+Peak+Shoulder+Offpeak = 1+.9+0+.24 or $2.24 then subtract your exported $2.18

Costs then $0.06 for the day.

Now look at some actual data for my last billing period

So Quarterly bill would have been $21.87

Now lets remove solar from the equation. I used 412,47 kWh of my solar generation so I need to add that back into the equation. I cannot add any to the Offpeak as that is non solar time. So have to add it to Peak and shoulder.

lets say that solar can be generated from 7am to 6pm (11 hours). Now shoulder is 10am to 3pm or 5 hours.

So we add 5/11 of the 412kWh to shoulder (45%) and 55% to Peak.

The change is very apparent (Yearly bill now $1500 not $88).

If you want you can PM me and I will give you an email address to send your meter data to me and I will convert it into the industry standard NEM format file which if understand spread sheets is very easy to manipulate the data.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

GregAGL — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 01:28:43 GMT

Thanks Neil
This still does not explain while in a half hour period producing in excess
of 6kw all the time and only using a maximim of 4 kW in the same period
through my appliances, I get a feed in amount and a cost from grid at the
same time.
Is it possible that something in my house is drawing more than the 6kW
momentarily and therefore needs draw from the grid for the extra. This is
strange as I have alive feed on my panels and have been watching production
vs usage and I donot see any spikes.

Is the full 6kW produced available to me or is it like a battery where it
can only release a.certain amount over time. Hence the need for more
batteries to meet demand.
Possibly when an electric motor starts up it draws more than my panels can
provide and hence draws from the grid at the same time. How would I test
this? How much more solar would I need to prevent this happening while the
sun is shining.
Off course when cloudy or intermittent Sun this would occur and I can see
that in my live feed.

Just looking for a plausible explanation why my solar is not meeting my
demand when my demand is well below production levels. Any explanation
appreciated.
I do find it interesting when I questioned AGL regarding this issue they
offered me $150 compensation to cover any shortfalls. Is there a problem or
not?

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

quinny — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 03:57:39 GMT

Check with whom ever installed your solar and make sure they have connected to all circuits, maybe they could not connect to all of them and so one is pulling from the grid whilst the others are covered by the solar.

eg. power and lights circuits hooked to solar but maybe shed is not.

this turned out to be the issue I had, no room to connect to all of house so they connected just to shed circuit with pool pumps as they used the most power

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

GregAGL — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 04:18:43 GMT

Some days my solar covers everything. Similar sunny day( ie same production
/ usage curve where solar exceeds usage) and I get both feed in and usage
in same half hour period. Same usage pattern each day
When cloudy the production curve drops and.I naturally draw from grid
Since some days solar covers usage, I donot think it is a missing circuit
connection.
Still scratching my head

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

GREG-S — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:13:52 GMT

Did your installer work that out for you? Or did you get an independent sparky to check it?

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 02:33:36 GMT

@quinny

Smart Meters are smart.

For instance if you have excess solar generation,it will flow through the Export side of the meter, if you do not have enough generation, power from the grid flows through the import side of the meter.

When installing Solar the only connection you need to make is to connect the Solar output to the main circuit board.

The only reason they connected to the shed was that there was no room to add another circuit into the board and used the shed circuit to get the power BACK to the main board. The shed should have been wired with heavier wiring anyway.

So in your case the Solar Circuit Breaker will be located in your Shed and the Main Solar AC Solar Switch on the wall next to the inverter.

In the Main Supply Board (Meter Box), there should be an tag indicating that Solar Circuit Breaker is located in the Shed Sub Board and that the Solar AC Switch located next to the inverter.

The instruction for your Solar should indicate that to isolate the solar you need to :

Turn off the Main AC Supply Switch.
Turn off the DC Supply Switches

To turn back on, reverse the the process, DC On, Main AC back on.

Once again I will iterate that it is possible to EXPORT and IMPORT, you can never do this at the SAME time (your time is in milliseconds) but remember your INTERVAL METER (Smart Switch) supplies readings at intervals (30, 15 or 5 min are common).

In 30 min intervals you will see it more often than 15 or 5, but it will occur.

You can see above when I was exporting / exporting on the 29th July 2023.

The 5min interval readings are supplied to me by SA Power Networks

The 30min readings are supplied from My Account at AGL.

I deliberately picked this day as it was clearly overcast as I generally don't import any power from 08:00 till 17:00 on most days, but then we only consume round 5kWh a day any way. The higher you usage the more chance you will get of using all of your solar.

Above is Screen Report for running my program to convert the AGL data into a NEM 12 format file. My data from SA Power Networks is supplied in NEM 12 format.

Note that I also only use meter readings based on my consumption for the Bill, I gave up actually reading my meter, a long time ago as it has been reset many times.

You will also need to note that the New Look AGL Bill DOES NOT CONTAIN meter readings, ONLY YOUR CONSUMPTION for the billing period.

Above is the results so far for my current billing cycle (in my Plan Schedule), you can see why power is cheaper in Shoulder Rate... My HIGH usage (3%) of shoulder power is because I heat my hot water during this period...

And here is my projected bill, I pay $22.50 every fortnight, so I don't get billshock.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

Lulu1 — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 21:59:16 GMT

How can you have your hot water heated at Shoulder time? Mine is on control load which heat at night when my solar is not work.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:40:02 GMT

@Lulu1

The answer is simple, I have a heat pump Hot Water Service.

I simply set the time for it to turn on when ever I want, in my case its from 10:30 and 17:00 even though most days it has heated the water to 66deg C by 13:30. (Less in Summer as the inlet water temperature is warmer)

You may be able to obtain a FREE HEAT PUMP for your place.

Also, there are three controlled load Tariffs that are available now, a solar sponge Tariff is available.

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

Electricpower — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 22:38:42 GMT

I also have that situation where import / export at the same time

My understanding is that you use electricity constantly so the 30 min cycle is just a measurement

example

let’s say

8 to 8:10 am everybody is up having breakfast using the bathroom, etc

you produce 0.05 kWh , but use 0.07 ( you import 0.02)

8:10/20 am you add the dishwasher

produce 0.08 use 0.12 (import 0.04)

820 to 830 nobody home only fridge on produce 0.1 use 0.03 ( export 0.07)

total for 30 min (8 to 830)

produce 0.23

usage 0.22

import 0.06

export 0.07

if you read the 30 min report you can say why if I am producing more than what I use I am still importing ….?!!!!!

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

Electricpower — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 22:41:38 GMT

I also have that situation where import / export at the same time

My understanding is that you use electricity constantly so the 30 min cycle is just a measurement

example

let’s say

8 to 8:10 am everybody is up having breakfast using the bathroom, etc

you produce 0.05 kWh , but use 0.07 ( you import 0.02)

8:10/20 am you add the dishwasher

produce 0.08 use 0.12 (import 0.04)

820 to 830 nobody home only fridge on produce 0.1 use 0.03 ( export 0.07)

total for 30 min (8 to 830)

produce 0.23

usage 0.22

import 0.06

export 0.07

if you read the 30 min report you can say why if I am producing more than what I use I am still importing ….?!!!!!

Re: Drawing from grid and exporting at same time

NeilC — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 10:37:49 GMT

@Electricpower,

I will make this really easy for you.

AGL shows you your usage at thirty min intervals, however you meter is more than likely to be configured for 5 minute intervals (this way they can get more from you if you are stupid enough to have demand rate).

Now, when you export power there is a meter for that, and when you consume power there is a meter for that.

So every interval it reports your consumption and your export.

When you look at your bill you are charged for your consumption and get a redemption for your export.

Now if your solar panels are producing 500W and you are using 500W there is no export and no consumption, as you are self consuming your generation.

If you are on a time of use tariff, then the time stamp of the INTERVAL data is then used to calculate your costs.

Now I will show you my data for my current billing period so far.

Reporting from 20240929 for 13 Days

DATE       TYPE    NMI Days Last Data Meter Read    Day Avg
20241011 Solar     B1    13     31.838 322.497          24.807
20241011 General E1    13       2.118 43.223    3.325

Below is my daily usage

Date	Peak	Shoulder	Off Peak	Exported
29-Sep	2.621	0.008	1.185	18.675
30-Sep	2.348	0.288	1.343	19.463
1-Oct	2.236	0.000	1.236	21.657
2-Oct	2.523	0.000	1.332	30.292
3-Oct	2.549	0.000	1.201	21.544
4-Oct	1.87	0.389	1.366	19.216
5-Oct	2.054	0.000	1.232	17.288
6-Oct	1.822	0.000	0.791	20.048
7-Oct	2.804	0.000	0.989	27.543
8-Oct	1.537	0.000	1.068	30.828
9-Oct	1.989	0.000	1.256	32.899
10-Oct	1.876	0.000	1.192	31.206
11-Oct	0.973	0.000	1.145	31.838
Total	27.202	0.685	15.336	322.497

So you can now see my daily usage for the first 13 days of my current billing period (quarterly), I could go further and show you my exact billing for this period but I won't. I could also show you the prediction of this bill including all cost's.

But be assured, when I get my bill it will be within 1 cent of what I know what my bill should be. (This is due to rounding as calculated by AGL and the rounding that I use in my Excel spread sheet).

Now you also need to under stand that you are charged in kWh (kilo Watt hours) and that usage is in kilo watts, meters are configured normally to 3 decimal points. (Which is what you see on your bill)

Note that I am using the AGL download file my data is to 3 decimal points.

My inverter however, only shows data to 2 decimal points, my spreadsheet takes my daily generation and can therefore can show my Generation minus my Exported figure which is approximate because of the 2 decimal point minus three decimal points.

So the answer to your question

"if you read the 30 min report, you can say why if I am producing more than what I use I am still importing ….?!!!!!"

I have explained this but.

YOU HAVE CONSUMED THE DIFFERENCE WITHIN THE HOUSE.....