Meter & Tariff Compatibility

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120084932#Comment_120084932

They have the telemetry but they cannot unilaterally change the MCC of the customer as this affects customer tariffs and Networks cannot have any impact on tariffs.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085556#Comment_120085556

MCC is meter configuration code. MCC01 is domestic 24hr. MCC02 is domestic day/night, MCC12 and MCC16 are smart meters. If you have a smart meter installed on MCC01, that's fine, as the meter is not activated. A total amount is still displayed on the meter and the customer(and all along the chain of supply) are billed as a 24hr customer. If you "activate" your smart meter you are moving MCC to 12 or 16, and this affects the tariffs available to you. This is why it's a customer initiated change, not the default. If you do nothing, the meter will remain as a 24hr meter.

Now, coming to night rate. If you do not activate the smart meter, the meter acts as MCC01. 24hr, and doesnt display day/night use. Unless you "activate" it. You cannot "activate" it and remain on MCC02, the meters are not currently configured to operate in that way. If you activate your smart meter you cannot get day night tariffs. (You can get smart tariffs with day night segments, but these are not the same as day night tariffs).

This is the crux of the issue. If it were so simple, it would have been done already. ESBn receive the 30 min data, only on meters that are in the category to do it of course, but it is only sent if you activate the meter. And you cannot activate the meter and remain on a non smart tariff.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085130#Comment_120085130

Exactly. There is no like for like MCC02 replacement with the smart meter hardware currently available. Even the suggestion you make is not the same as MCC02 as there is day/night/peak. And not to mention that MCC16 day/night/peak rates are all much more expensive than the day/night mcc02 tariff.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085655#Comment_120085655

You can't though. You could have installed every MCC01 meter as MCC12 or MCC16... thats fine.. as theres no impact to the customer.

td2008

MCC01 meters are installed as MCC01 meters as it is.

If consent was not an issue there would be a possibility of installing all the meters as MCC12 and let the supplier replicate the existing billing whether that is 24HR or D/N etc

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085655#Comment_120085655

At the risk of speaking for unkel (who i think is of the same opinion as me), is that there seems to be a gap in understanding how a smart meter -can- work out (today!) if you are using electricity between 5pm and 7pm, and yet it can't seem to figure out that it's 11pm so night time rate. Seems like nonsense to me - but maybe I don't fully understand the problem, so maybe i can be enlightened.

What's the difference.....GDPR included.

PS:- Huge fan of GDPR in general, but in this case someone needs to have "a word with themselves".

td2008

You have two options for a "Smart" plan

You can go to MCC16 which is Day night and peak, but this will only provide 3 reads every 2 months so only gives you an aggregate level of data

i.e peak 5-7 for the whole 2 month period

If you want the granular daily data you need to go to interval which will give the 30 minute intervals daily

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085862#Comment_120085862

Theres nothing to do with GDPR.

The meters dont display a simple count of day and night use. That is because they are not configured to do so.

They could configure a set of smart meters to provide two readings, one as day and one as night. This would be an effective replacement for MCC02.. without consent needed for tariff change or activation.

bullit_dodger

They don't make this easy to understand. I WANT to understand why the feck they can't seem to get it together (GDPR or some other nonsense), but I'm failing.

Description of Characteristics of Connection - DUoS and MCC Codes (esbnetworks.ie)

I just don't get it.

Either the device logs the stuff every 15/30 minutes .... or it doesn't. Not displaying this shite or that shite - it's all nonsense. Stuff should be done online anyway. You just want a device recording/setup for MCC11 and be done with it. I totally get that you can infer from your power usage personal data like when you leave the house, or when you come home from work, but that's all solvable.

Dunno - usually I like to give ESB networks the benifit of the doubt, but struggling here.

jkforde

so if the smart meter can be configured to register solely day and night units separately (effectively Day\Night metering, with billing cycle data granularity), then whhhhhy wasn't this done at the start of the whole process? disable the configuration until such time as a customer is switched to a smart meter and consents to stay on a Day\Night tarrif, all ESBN then would have to do would be to enable that specific configuration.

unkel

@bullit_dodger - "I totally get that you can infer from your power usage personal data like when you leave the house, or when you come home from work"

Not in my gaff. Nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use, nothing zero use....15kW o'clock 😮

td2008

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086012#Comment_120086012

Ideally there should have been a D/N smart meter from the beginning and just replace the meters like they did for 24HR but i suppose this is what's coming

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085990#Comment_120085990

It doesnt log it unless you activate and consent to sending logs

Without that it's effectively the same as a dumb meter... except it measures Day Night and Peak, as well as export, instead of just day and night.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086034#Comment_120086034

This is what should be coming and it's the only one that makes sense.

I wouldnt be surprised if there wasnt a government instruction to ensure that all smart meters are configured to measure peak use in addition to day and night - and this is whats holding up the implementation of an MCC02 smart version

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086017#Comment_120086017

LOL - even your house mate, with your 40Kwh batteries!! Summer time where you are away, you won't be charging them up at 15kw o'clock, so someone could infer that your away on holliers, due to the lack of import into you gaff.....but I get your point :-)

But yeah talking about a "normal" house, I could looking at the data infer when someone came home, turned on the 9kw for a shower, how long they had a shower, when they turned on the microwave, ate dinner etc. Its amazing the sleuthing that you can do from a power profile!

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086017#Comment_120086017

Semi OT: I hit 16.5kW o clock last night. The only regret I have is that I couldnt scavenge the heat from the wires coming in lol

This connection between gdpr and smart meters is tenuous at best, and I'm a major opponent of smart metering as a whole.

unkel

@ELM327 - "I hit 16.5kW o clock last night. The only regret I have is that I couldnt scavenge the heat from the wires coming in lol"

Nice! 16kva supply I presume? I hit 15.1kW o'clock on 12kva

I did scavenge the heat. Charging and discharging the battery is my main source of heat for my garden room / shed. Must remember to tune down my inverter to 3kW tonight, 3 hours of 5kW continuous led to some rather warm cables 😁

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085714#Comment_120085714

You cannot "activate" it and remain on MCC02, the meters are not currently configured to operate in that way. If you activate your smart meter you cannot get day night tariffs.

I think the bit that's confusing/frustrating here is that its not actually the meter is configured for MCC02. Your replies suggest its configured on the meter?!

The meter has no knowledge at all as to what MCC the customer has. It simply collects the data and sends it back to HQ with a 30min granularity.

What MCC the customer is on is entirely a function of the backend billing systems and its only the powers that be can explain why they wont (or haven't yet) supported MCC02 for smart meters. The meter doesn't care.

Someone else mentioned that it might be due to the fact that d/n customers are already limiting their peak usage anyway so they are not the primary focus initially so it looks like they simply decided to go after the low hanging fruit first and convert the 24hr customers first as that's the easy one... you are on 24hr and you switch to smart meter and you stay on 24hr by simply adding up all the 30min intervals to give you your 24hr usage figure.

The d/n tariff requires a little more software at the backend but its hardly rocket science. Its inexplicable really that they haven't offered it yet but I presume they will get to it and it wouldn't require new smart meters to support it... its just backend software updates to aggregate the data accordingly.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086329#Comment_120086329

No, 12kva. I priced an upgrade to the 16kva which would have required a change to a smart meter (!!!) so I cancelled it. 63a at 240v is 15kW anyway so the 12kva is more a branding than a real label. I doubt the different power factors would be 1.25!

I have an 80a fuse on the input to the house then one main and 2 sub boards - 2 63a and one 40a. The 40a is on one of the 63a.

So once I don't exceed 80a total or 63 respectively on the sub boards it's fine. The car chargers are on each of the 63a boards on their own 40a RCBO.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086473#Comment_120086473

ESB Networks dont expect people to max out the connection to the fuse rating. The expectation is that you are operating below the fuse rating.

A 12kVA (60A ESB fuse) connection officially supports 52A averaged across a 10min interval (12kW/230V=52A) and 70A on a 16kVA(80A ESB fuse) connection. You can, of course, take it to the limit but you then run the risk of blowing their fuse, which you have to pay to replace.

The ESB fuse wont blow at 60A but if you draw 60A for hours on end it will eventually blow. Its not an exact science. It literally has to burn out rather than "trip".

I have an 80a fuse on the input to the house

Are you sure? Did ESBn confirm that? If you have an 80A fuse in the meter box you already have the enhanced supply.

unkel

If you have an 80A fuse, you have a 16kva supply

td2008

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086416#Comment_120086416

The meters do have a configuration that does relate to the MCC

The current meters read in the following format : 24 hour (MCC01), D/N/P (MCC16), Interval (MCC12) (also export but I'll ignore that)

The supplier then tells Networks which data to pull based on MCC

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086898#Comment_120086898

My old school d/n meter has 3 readings (day, night and 24hr) but the meter has no idea what MCC I am actually on.

The MCC is decided in the back office system. No reason why smart meters can’t be the same, that’s the point.

What is displayed on the meter itself doesn’t really matter when the data is at 30min granularity.

The supplier then tells Networks which data to pull based on MCC

Thats more or less the point being made. The meter doesn’t know, it’s determined at the backend by the provider and ESBn. The meter just records and sends the data.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086473#Comment_120086473

Edited.

I just checked, 12kva is 80a dso fuse and 63a customer. 16sq tails.

16kva is 100a dso fuse and 80a customer. 25sq tails.

td2008

Yes it's an identifier in the market and back end systems but there's a relationship to the meter

The existing smart meters can't just be "MCC02" because they do not have a Day/Night configuration.

That's why a new smart meter is required with Day/Night , D/N/P and interval

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086977#Comment_120086977

Id imagine they can be programmed any which way ESBn like. The data is in 30min chunks so MCC02 can be easily done if they want… they have just decided not to do it yet.

I don’t see a technical reason why an entirely new meter is required.

edit: your earlier doc link details it to some degree where they talk about overlapping registers and how it needs to be reprogrammed at install time to suit MCC02.

“… whereby Single Phase MCC02 meters will be exchanged with Smart Meters configured as MCC02, utilising the capabilities of the RM107 Smart Meter”

So, it looks like we will all get the same smart meters but if you are currently on d/n you will get it with different settings.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086968#Comment_120086968

That doesn’t tally with ESBn website or what they told me directly.

https://www.esbnetworks.ie/new-connections/understanding-connection-capacity

I have the 16kVA connection with 25sq tails and the fuse holder in the meter box clearly shows “60A/80A” which would suggest it can’t be a 100A fuse and I also asked ESBn directly a while back when I was having voltage issues and they told me I have an 80A DSO fuse.

Unless ESBn have changed since and haven’t updated their website. That’s possible I suppose.

td2008

To get the 30 minute data the customer needs to give consent to the supplier, the supplier needs to request the 30 min data from ESBN (request of MCC12) and then the data is received that way. This is not D/N - even if you split it up that way. Also worth mentioning that you cannot get MCC12 until the comms on the meter is proven which can take 30 days.

To upgrade the existing D/N meters with no impact to consent or contracts, you would need to replace the meter with a meter that reads D/N

unkel

Consent? LOL wat sort of bollix is that? A meter reader can come out to read your meter at any time now without asking your permission, can't they?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120087099#Comment_120087099

When I got my supply upgraded, the guy said to me that it's a 100amp fuse, for 16kva, 80 amp in the consumer unit, 80 on 12, but 63 amp in the consumer unit.

The consumer unit one should go before the esbn one,.

The esbn head still has the 60/80 markings on it. Never changed it.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120087099#Comment_120087099

That's interesting 🤔

It wouldn't make much sense to have a 63a on the customer side and a 60a on the dso side as the dso side could blow before the customer's.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120087124#Comment_120087124

🤪

I don’t know so. Different answers from the same entity!

if there is a 100A fuse in there they should update their website and properly label the fuse holder! 😉