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In Finland its mainly remote meter reading meters where signal is transmitted over GSM to electricity companies. Most of the meters can only read consumption not production. Other thing to mention is the fact that due to the popularity of electric heating all modern houses have 3phase grid connection and 3phase meters installed.

Some grid companies have installed meters that use mesh networks that operate at 868Mhz - that could be interesting to start debugging. All modern meters have a pulsing led, anyhow that may not be accessible to end user. E.g. in my house the meter is inside a sealed plastic housing where distance from plexiglass to meter led is around 5cm making remote reading impossible.

According to the law electricity companies must start buying electricity from small production , but very few does that. Current rate is around 3c/kwh where end user pays around 12c/kwh including network charges. Not really a business case to sell production, therefore hot water heating with DC only PV coupling is somewhat popular.

As 90% of meters have been changed during past couple of years to remote reading meters is very unlikely that meters that can detect production.

The good news is that due to the colder climate our production capability is at par with central europe because of PV panel production being so sensitive to outdoor temperature.

In the UK we have the best deal, one meter for overall consumption and a generation meter we are paid by the government to generate power and the power company assumes 50% is fed back to the grid thats why its beneficial to use as much of the solar power that we can as we are paid anyway, if you have a solar array above a certain size the you have to have an export meter to show whats actually going back into the grid.

Hi,

so you have a production power meter only over a certain size otherwise the producted energy is just guessed by the power company?

Do you know how much is this size?

Do you have a pulsing led on your consumption counter?

Thanks

All UK domestic meters have some high resolution indicators fitted. Older disc types have a mark on the circumference and newer ones have a pulsing LED usually, but not always, 1000 flashes per kWh.

All UK PV has a generation meter. Owners are paid for every kWh they generate at a contractual rate. In addition, if an export meter is not fitted, it is assumed 50% is exported and a very small premium is paid. If an export meter is fitted then this figure is used instead for the extra payment.

hth

Bob

The Spanish the most crazy.

currently the new digital meters are programmed as default to add the energy imported to exported, the Solar production not only give away the electric company but i will also pay for it. as consumed.

Besides that now arises the Spanish Minister  put a flat tax on installed solar power.

for this reason all those have solar cells on the roof raised the removal

Of course  the new digital meters installed by the electric "LOBBY" have a pulsing led on it, 1000 pulse KW/H.

Spanish is different.

In Aus (or at least the part I live in, it varies from state to state) there is one meter, but it has 2 registers: import and export.  At any instant, the meter will only be counting into one register, depending on the instantaneous power direction.  The LED flashes at 1 flash / WH, but only on the import register.  So on a typical sunny day where your production exceeds your consumption all day long, the LED will stop flashing when the sun comes up and resume flashing when the sun goes down.

What the power company does with those two register values depends on which scheme you're on.  In my case, there is a strong incentive to export (about a 2:1 price difference), so I actually need the opposite of PV-Dump.  Delaying running as much stuff as possible until after the sun has gone down is best for me (but not necessarily best for the grids peak demand).

In the USA, the meters vary widely based on the local power utility. Most utilize the basic spinning disc meter that is not electronic. Some areas may have smart meters that pulse. I have an electronic meter due to my PV install, but it does not appears to flash any LED during consumption. The display flashes two kWh numbers, one for consumption and one for export. New York State is a net-metering state, requiring the utility to purchase all exported power at market rates, so I only pay for the difference between the two.

Dan

I've been in Romania where i found an electric meter with a flashing led.. (But most of them have the rotating disc...)