EDMI Atlas Mk10d meter - how to see live usage

[Dimitryp]

Hello,

    I currently have an EDMI Mk10d meter installed, and got a Solar system installed a month back. The meter has been reconfigured and i'm feeding into the grid and all that, all of that is fine.

I presently have codes 03 and 13 available on the meter, which show my cumulative usage from the grid (from the time the meter was installed?), and also my cumulative feed-in back to grid.

What i would really like to do is to be able to see live usage for my house, i.e. when i switch on my 2kw kettle, i want to walk to the meter and it should show "2kw current live usage" (lets just assume i have no stand-by appliances). 

I used to be able to see this when i had a different brand of electronic (but not smart?) meter about a year back, but then this got switched out by AGL for the EDMI Mk10d.

Additionally seeing live feed-in kwh's (what solar is feeding into the grid this second) would also be very useful.

I emailed AGL support about this, and they asked me to ring PLUS ES (the smart meter maintenance people, from what i can tell), but they told me that what i'm asking for is not possible.

Is this really true? No way to see live usage in your house? Very frustrating if that is the case.

thanks,

Dimitry

[Schander · Accepted solution]

Hi Dimitry,

Have you tried looking into this?

Solar Efergy Engage Hub Online Wifi Energy Monitor

Regards,

Schander

[Dimitryp]

Thanks Schader.

That looks like an interesting solution, but unfortunately not particularly cheap. I've got 3 phase power, so that's $320 for the device, and then maybe $200 to get an electrician to install - so $500+ in total.

There's another similar solution i've seen, called Solar Analytics. Does the same thing pretty much. Been quoted $700 to install that. 

My problem could be solved very easily if the Meter would just display live data. It has the readings, im pretty sure it can do it, its just a matter of getting AGL/meter provider to enable that, which they dont seem to want to do.

Dimitry

[Schander]

Hi Dimitry,

I apologise, I may have misread your message earlier.  I understand now that you are wanting to go the meter each time to check.  I live in a 3 phase powered house and have the exact same smart meter.

These identifiers normally correspond with the following descriptions:

03 & 04 - Excess energy consumed by customer
07 - Total energy consumed by customer’s hot water
13 - Excess energy exported by solar system
14 - Excess energy exported by customer
43 - This register should record zero
53 - Total Excess energy consumed by customer
63 - Total Excess energy exported by solar system

In my situation, I didn't want to keep going to the meter to read it just to see how much was consumed by a single appliance and in reality, even if I turned all my standby appliances off, the fridge is still running 24 x 7 and the switch behind it wasn't easily accessible for me to keep turning it off manually and go to the meter to see how much my kettle or microwave was consuming. 

So, what I did instead was buy a Kogan Power Meter. 

https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/kogan-smarterhome-smart-plug-with-energy-meter-pack-of-4-kogan/

I put one on my fridge, another one on my Washer/Dryer, another one on my kettle/microwave, and a final one in the bedroom where I was running a heater during the winter. You don't need an electrician for this.  The app, once you get it connected to your internet router, allows you to see real-time consumption of the appliance.  You can track it by day, by month, and by year.  Now, having said that, it tells me what the actual consumption was.  With Solar, I would always run my Inverter's App and pull that information real-time and reconcile it manually that way.

You can go to the smart meter each time to do a check, but in my case, it wasn't convenient and I was too busy trying to look up the registers each time.

Hope the above information helps!

Regards,

Schander

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[Schander]

Hi Dimitry,

Just adding to the note that I realise I have provided all the registers across the smart meters.  This particular MK10D provides the following registers (per what is in the AGL community page):

I think the question/issue is whether that smart meter can be configured for more registers to provide more information.  If not, then you can reconcile it the way I mentioned.

Regards,

Schander

[Dimitryp]

Hi Schander,

    In regards to the kogan type electricity monitors, i actually have something like that so i know what my key appliances consume. The reason why i want to get live readings is to tell if my solar is "working properly" at a given time, as in, is it covering the usage of my aircon right now?

I dont mind going out to the meter to check that.

Problem is, as you stated, by meter only gives me codes 03 and 13, which is cumilative kwh since the meter was installed. If i could get all the codes you get on your meter i'd be happy, but i only get these 2.

So my question is, how do i get other codes on my meter? AGL's told me to ring PLUS ES (im guessing they maintain the meters?), and they told me that they couldnt do anything.

Is this a limitation of Ausgrid (my supplier in Sydney), or a limitation of AGL?

Thanks,

Dimitry

[Schander · Accepted solution]

Hi Dimitry,

>>The reason why i want to get live readings

>>is to tell if my solar is "working properly" at

>>a given time, as in, is it covering the usage

>>of my aircon right now?

I can certainly understand what you are after.  If I may make a suggestion? You can request a detailed meter usage from AGL.  Here's the link to do this:  https://refer.agl.com.au/forms/request-metering-data/

You would also need to pull the detailed solar power generated from your Inverter's App.  

For the same date/time period for both your Solar Panel System and your electricity bill, you should be able to apply this formula:

First calculate the Change in cumulative kWh on your Solar panel system for the date and time period.

Then look at the detailed meter usage from AGL for the same time period (you should have both registers from your smart meter on there) which is the Feed-in-Tariff (excess supplied to the grid) and the Grid (amount drawn from the grid after solar offset your household consumption). 

Hence, we can principally agree that:

Solar Power Consumed Internally = Change in cumulative kWh on your solar panel system for the day - Feed-in-Tariff from your detailed meter usage report

To get the full picture, we need to understand the solar financial benefit for that day:

Solar Financial Benefit  = (Solar Power Consumed Internally x AGL Peak Rate) + (Feed-in-Tariff kWh x Feed-in-Tariff rate)

If the value you get for Solar Financial Benefit exceeds the Feed-in-Tariff Amount for that day, you know that Solar is doing its job.  If the question is how well, then you'd need to shorten the time period to when you flipped the aircon on and run the information through the formula above. 

You could also calculate your household total consumption by applying this formula:

Solar Power Consumed Internally kWh + Grid (Drawn from AGL) kWh

Technically, the AGL bill would no longer reflect the true household consumption since your solar panels are offsetting as much of the power before the request goes to the grid and also any excess generated gets fed back into the grid.  I know that this doesn't satisfy the requirement of real-time monitoring.  But I don't believe you'll get the information you need with those two registers alone with these smart meters without comparing the information to your inverter (solar panel) results for the same time period.

Regards,

Schander

If I’ve helped in any way, please mark my post as SOLVED!

This helps our Community know the answer to common questions.

[Dimitryp]

Thanks Schander. What you suggest i'm pretty much doing already. I was, however, after a way to get immediate live readings of current usage.

Its becoming apparent that its likely that AGL/Ausgrid dont offer this type of data on the type of meter i have.

What i'll probably end up doing is going doing the Efenergy monitor route, which you suggested. Its a bit more $ invested, but will provide some good live data and analysis, which would be interesting to see.

thanks,

Dimitry

[BudDadude]

This is for the Mk7C, though it suggests that the meter CAN do what you are asking for, and is likely configured to not show all of the readings - 

https://www.energyassets.co.uk/media/resources/pdf/BG_RMM_EDMI-MK7C-web.pdf

[BudDadude]

I found this on another forum which may be useful to you - 

If you want to be able to keep a closer eye on your day to day usage, I recommend investing in one of these smart energy monitors, as I have done http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Energy-Monitor-for-Smart-or-Digital-Electricity-Power-Meters-EW4500-Wirel... or you can search ebay for 'ew4500 power' and they'll come up.

The smart meter has a light on it that flashes every time you use (I think it's) 1/10 of a kwh. The energy monitor has a sensor that sticks over the flashing light to count how fast it's flashing. It then sends that information to the receiver you have in the house to tell how much energy you're using at that time – or you can see your useage per hour, day, month – if you see your power usage is really high for the week you can even look through the history and see when all that power was used.