Net meter not zero when it should be

[PQ]

I've noticed for a particularly sunny and clear day that AGL still reports 10-30 cents/hour of cost during the middle of the day, when my solar monitoring shows the solar production was uninterrupted and the local usage was well below what was coming in through solar. How does net metering work, and what could explain the >0 cost during high solar production hours?

[Natalie-AGL]

Hi PQ,

Thank you for reaching out.

There are many reasons why it would be showing 0 cost during high production hours, a good resource to check is:
https://www.agl.com.au/help-support/energy/billing-and-payments/solar-battery-tariffs-billing-and-pl...
If you need more support, please contact us via any of our methods found at: 
agl.com.au/contact-us.

Kind regards, Naz

[NeilC]

@PQ 

When your usage of power exceeds the generation of your solar panels then your meter will report the power imported.

If you have a smart meter you can look at the usage on the graph on the web page or app.

Last month I used .082 kWh of power during the shoulder period (1000 - 1500) but generated 439.133 kWh for the same period.

You state that "the local usage was well below what was coming in through solar" but as above, you still can exceed the output of your solar panels.

If you have a 5kW inverter then the maximum output you can generate is 5kW even if you have 6.6 kW of solar panels. The extra 1.6 kW just allows you to get up to 5kW on overcast days.

[PQ · Accepted solution]

As it turns out the problem was that AGL had connected my account to my neighbour's meter instead of mine, so I was seeing someone else's usage.