Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 14 replies
  • Subscribers 39 subscribers
  • Views 1314 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Question about metering solutions.

whjohnson

Am looking for a quick and cheap solution to a requirement to provide metering for a single appliance, in this case a dairy fridge/chiller for a farmer.

The refrigeration unit is on a 13A plug and socket. and I thing the max draw when the compressor kicks in is only around 1.5A.

The guy wishes to 'rent out' the unit for a third party to use and he needs to  know how much to charge for it's electricity consumption.

What would be the easiest solution to this? Leave the existing socket outlet alone and just insert some kind of meter in line with the appliance flex? (If such an item exists)

Or just insert a meter between the supply and the socket outlet concerned. Note: metering is not possible from the consumer unit end.

A 100A meter seems like overkill for what is actually needed.

Comments welcome.

Parents
  • 0

    I can nor recommend use of a plug in energy monitor. Many are of doubtful accuracy, and most have no reliable memory, they reset after after a power cut or after any accidental or malicious interruption. 

    Neither can I recommend any estimate based on short term measurement or observation, consumption will vary a lot according to ambient temperature, door opening, and temperature of goods placed into the store.

    If you need to know how many kwh are used, fit a kwh meter. they are not expensive, nor hard to fit.

  • 0 in reply to broadgage

    If you know the power consumption of the appliance which will run for 24/7 while the client is in residence then add the price of electricity onto the rental.

    Is there a problem with that method?

  • 0 in reply to Legh Richardson

    Yes I can see a problem. It is not a constant load. In cool weather it might only run for a few minutes in each hour, possibly not at all in extreme cold weather.

    In a heatwave it might run 24/7.

    Also the power factor is unknown and might vary.

  • 0 in reply to Legh Richardson

    The situation is simply this - the farmer is giving up his milk round - he used to buy milk in from a local dairy and provide a sales/delivery service. This will no longer be the case because he wants to partially retire, and someone else has asked if they could take it over. All they want is the use of the fridge.

    The farmer asked me today if I could fit a meter to measure the consumption of of the fridge unit (commercial type) so that he knew how much to charge the person who is taking over the use of the fridge for the amount of electricity it is using. He is concerned about the rising costs of energy, and didn't want to lose out by undercharging. I think it will be just case of charging a cost price rather than to make any money out of it.

  • 0 in reply to broadgage

    Ok, so we are not talking about the exotic locations pampering to the ultra conscience over subscribed over inflated expectation are we.

    So we make a quarterly, winter, spring, summer autumn assessment and apply these expected costs to the bill.

    As we have established that It's not an hourly frequented knocking shop... is it?

Reply
  • 0 in reply to broadgage

    Ok, so we are not talking about the exotic locations pampering to the ultra conscience over subscribed over inflated expectation are we.

    So we make a quarterly, winter, spring, summer autumn assessment and apply these expected costs to the bill.

    As we have established that It's not an hourly frequented knocking shop... is it?

Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines