No room for Energy Monitor CT clamp

Alun

Until I got my smart meter fitted a year or so ago I had an Owl energy monitor with the CT clamp and transmitter installed in the meter cabinet. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but worked fine. Before the smart meter was fitted, I took it off to avoid it getting lost/damaged /whatever, but when I went to reinstall it there wasn't enough room to get the clamp in, so it's remained unused since then.

I've attached a couple of photos to show the problem.

I'm considering getting a Solar PV system installed but before I do I'd like to get a good handle on my usage pattern, and was thinking of getting a more sophisticated energy monitor, that can log usage over time, but unless the new CT clamp is a good bit smaller than the current one, I'll be stuck.

So what could I do in this situation, and who would I need to get the work done to free things up a bit in the cabinet? Is that an ESB job or can any RECI sparks do it? Alternatively is there another place it could be installed, say where the mains feed enters the CU?

meercat

Any rec should be able to to remove the outer grey insulation to access the inner cables to give more access

you could ask esbn to install an isolation switch,which they are required to do.

Alun

Thanks for that. When you say ESBN are required to install an isolation switch, should they have done that when installing the smart meter then?

meercat

Yes.

Alun

Thanks, I'll contact them and see what they say.

meercat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118825856#Comment_118825856

Cheers. Report back with an update

unkel

In the meterbox is fine Alun. That's where I had my Owl CT clamp transmitter and from memory that's where the manual said to install it.

Alun

Yes, I had it there when the old dumb meter was installed, but the smart meter is larger and is pushed up really close to the top of the main fuse holder restricting access to the wires leaving the meter going into the house where I had the clamp installed.

unkel

Ah ok now I get you. I don't think it's allowed to go into your own consumer unit. I most certainly wouldn't. Electrician time (and it's a 5 minute job - you could combine it with some other work you need doing to ease the call out charge). Had a CT clamp installed in my consumer unit myself when I had my power wall system connected to the grid. It is a smart 2 CT clamp system and needed to monitor house consumption and PV production so it would know when to charge / discharge the battery. I installed the other CT clamp on the PV side myself 😂

Alun

I've got a few smallish electrical jobs that need doing so might go down that route if the new CT clamp doesn't fit or ESB don't want to know.