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Since switching to three phase my consumption has rocketed to 25,000KWH per annum, despite no significant additional load.

We moved to three phase 3.5 years ago an anticipation of electric cars (which we don't have). 

Since then We have been consuming around 25,000KWH pa according to the meter. 

I've had a second meter fitted and it's validated these numbers. 

When I switch all the RCDs off it stops, so clearly it's my side of the RCDs. 

The house is around 10 years old with gas heating and gas cooking. We have low energy light bulbs. 

The overnight consumption seems to show we're using 4+KWH per hour when we're asleep. 

Load balancing was mentioned and I vaguely remember it from my degree but I don't believe that's it. 

Large donation to charity if you can help me work this one out

thanks in advance 

Adam

Parents
  • Sorry for the delay but we've been working on this !

    Clamp meters showed two problems (3kw greenhouse heater with broken themostat and Hot Tub with an issue)

    Turning them off has reduced the load BUT it still remains very high esp overnight

    Next suggestion is to rent data loggers to record the load ...

    The other suggestion is that because of the un balanced load the electricity company (Ecotricity) *might* be charging 3x the highest phase and not per phase. The Billing department seemed surprised that we only had ONE reading for KWHs on the meter... any one have a view on this ???

Reply
  • Sorry for the delay but we've been working on this !

    Clamp meters showed two problems (3kw greenhouse heater with broken themostat and Hot Tub with an issue)

    Turning them off has reduced the load BUT it still remains very high esp overnight

    Next suggestion is to rent data loggers to record the load ...

    The other suggestion is that because of the un balanced load the electricity company (Ecotricity) *might* be charging 3x the highest phase and not per phase. The Billing department seemed surprised that we only had ONE reading for KWHs on the meter... any one have a view on this ???

Children
  • Is your meter a true 3 phase meter (ie. it has 8 wires in the bottom) or is it done by using 3 x single phase meters?

    If it is a true 3 phase meter, then it will correctly integrate the sum of the powers over the three phases into one composite kWh reading - it does not take "three times the highest" which seems to be a common myth.

  • A properly wired 3 phase meter will always correctly add out of balance single phase loads as if it were the sum of the 3 loads - if they did not there would have been riots years ago as almost every commercial and industrial premises has a mix of single and 3 phase wiring. The meter actually has 3 sets of sensors inside.

    Do the clamp meter readings in amps stack with the kilowatt hours ? for the purpose of ready -reckoner checks approx 4 amps is a touch over a kilowatt .

    If you are concerned, what is the model of the meter, we can look it up for you.