Leaderboard

Quick update, I'm using the opportunity to slowly move things over to Victron. I have a 150/70 MPPT controller on the way along with a BMV-712. I have a spare Pi that'll be used to run VenusOS. A replacement inverter for the Axpert will happen a little down the line. For now the priority is getting the full potential out of these panels and proper battery monitoring in place. Unfortunately it seems like the full month (plus a few days) of running the system incorrectly seems to have shot the batteries entirely. I can barely squeeze 2 hours out of a 200aH bank and that's with the inverter screaming about low voltage. Fingers crossed the batteries can be replaced.

Exactly for this reason, you should not look at Efergy at all. In general throughout the electrical industry, if you use any type of meter for billing purposes it should be within a certain accuracy class (0.5% if I remember correctly). The spinning disc meters use to be very accurate although i did see some faulty ones in my life that needed to be replaced. On the other hand, most electronic type meters with clamp on CT's use the 100 amp CT, from playing around with this CT in some electronic projects, it became clear that it is not that accurate way down on the low side of things, and some of them only start giving readings at 100-150 watt loads. The Spinning disc will read the low usage better in my opinion, and this might contribute to the difference that you see. Its difficult to say which one is more accurate without the use of a calibrated tester to compare the true readings.

About 4 years ago I installed an electric geyser to act as a dumpload. When my family is away I can get away without using gas. Hot water from geyser powered by PV and I use an electrical kettle in conjunction with a thermos, and cook on an induction plate. Now during lockdown I have my broom-flying mother-in-law to stay and in the interests of my own sanity have abandoned any ideas of trying to be frugal in our gas usage.