East london. These metres were rammed in 2 years ago. My bill was 1220kw to 1350kw max. Smart metre now says 1220kw then 1750kw then 2104kw from one month to the next.  NO XTRA UTILITIES. Its erratic and not possible EL has highest electricity cost in SA at R2.86 plus vat Kwh.

Everybody complains , Bcm refuses to listen. Can metre be chkd. Some results are bizzare.

2 hours ago, Alzo said:

East london. These metres were rammed in 2 years ago. My bill was 1220kw to 1350kw max. Smart metre now says 1220kw then 1750kw then 2104kw from one month to the next.  NO XTRA UTILITIES. Its erratic and not possible EL has highest electricity cost in SA at R2.86 plus vat Kwh.

Everybody complains , Bcm refuses to listen. Can metre be chkd. Some results are bizzare.

Do you have something to check the meter against? One of the first things you will be asked if you complain about 2104kWh is how you know it's not correct.

If you have a PV system with access to some sort of tool that tracks usage then you can make a start. But if you're getting those sorts of figures then you probably don't have a PV system. 

Is this post-paid or pre-paid? Do you have any sort of inverter or generator that could possibly be sending power back to the grid?

Any changes in your circumstances? Meter thermostats replaced or turned up? New electronic/electrical devices? Timings changed on the pool pump?

Have there been voltage fluctuations in the area. For a while where I live the grid voltage was low, and people on pre-paid complained that their credit was running down more quickly than usual. This makes sense if the the meters were sensing current rather than power.

Edited March 4, 20242 yr by Bobster.

1 minute ago, Bobster. said:

This makes sense if the the meters were sensing current rather than power.

The meters measure power.

Its all a NO. Its not prepaid its on account. I look at my historical billing and it was consistent for years. Now its all over the place. Same utilities, same time settings on geysers. Gas stoves. So we just dont know what its going to thumbsuck next. 

52 minutes ago, Alzo said:

Its all a NO. Its not prepaid its on account. I look at my historical billing and it was consistent for years. Now its all over the place. Same utilities, same time settings on geysers. Gas stoves. So we just dont know what its going to thumbsuck next. 

Is the meter on your property or in a street box with lots of other meters? Do you read the meter yourself to verify the figures on your account?
 

4 hours ago, Alzo said:

East london. These metres were rammed in 2 years ago. My bill was 1220kw to 1350kw max. Smart metre now says 1220kw then 1750kw then 2104kw from one month to the next.  NO XTRA UTILITIES. Its erratic and not possible EL has highest electricity cost in SA at R2.86 plus vat Kwh.

Everybody complains , Bcm refuses to listen. Can metre be chkd. Some results are bizzare.

Get the munic to replace it as there seems to be a problem. Install one of these R500 power meters even if not calibrated you might get them to agree on changing it if you have pics showing a big disparity but it would then normally be changed to a prepaid. 

In Tshwane we find it quite easy to get a new meter fitted if one feels the meter has a big error. My neighbour had his prepaid changed the other day and he is much happier with the lower use of power. 

 

Its in a street box at my gate outside. Reading is very difficult, bill says 1st to 31st. So is it 00H hours on the 1st to 00H hours on the 31st? Ive being 12pm to 12pm readings. Its sweltering hot in EL. Put aircon on for 2 hours. No other geysers or kettles or came on. Reading difference from previous day is 15kw For 2 hours of 12 btu aircon. Somethings not right. 

2 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Get the munic to replace it as there seems to be a problem. Install one of these R500 power meters even if not calibrated you might get them to agree on changing it if you have pics showing a big disparity but it would then normally be changed to a prepaid. 

In Tshwane we find it quite easy to get a new meter fitted if one feels the meter has a big error. My neighbour had his prepaid changed the other day and he is much happier with the lower use of power. 

 

Thanks for reply. Once on Smartmetre account, you cant change back to pre-paid. This municipality wont do diddly its bankrupt. 

Where can I get R500 metre from, whats the cost? 

Just now, Alzo said:

Where can I get R500 metre from, whats the cost? 

Look at Communica.Co.Za locally. Also on bobshop there would be sellers. Led_select is a great trusted seller in COCT. 

 

Thanks very much.

I turned the mains off and the smart metre carries on turning? Went from 5286 to 5290 when mains is off. Whats going on??? 

1 hour ago, Alzo said:

I turned the mains off and the smart metre carries on turning? Went from 5286 to 5290 when mains is off. Whats going on??? 

OK... so the meter is in a box in the street, and you turned off the main breaker that is inside your property?

If I understand the situation correctly then a couple of possibilities come to mind
1) The meters are not connected to the correct property. This has happened to me. The street was recabled, the contractor just put meters in a box and hooked them up but didn't properly check which meter was supplying which stand. City Power came out with a cable tracer, had to remap all the meters to the correct stands, and pass lots of correcting entries on accounts. This was not good for some folks mood. I had put in a solar geyser around the same time and couldn't understand why my bill wasn't dropping. My neighbour was happy because he was being billed for an ever lower amount. Turned out the meter linked to my account was supplying his stand. And etc.

2) Somebody has connected a cable to your meter.

(1) fits with your observation that there are multiple complaints.

Follow @Scorp007's advice and get a second measurement device put in. Now you can keep your own readings for the municipal meter and your own meter. It doesn't matter what date you read them. What matters is whether or not they give a similar picture of consumption. 

Thanks for reply. Im getting warmer and warmer as to why this is wrong. Can anyone tell me what a " floating earth" is? Suposedly causes all sorts of drama. 

A 'floating earth' depicts a situation where the 'ground' reference and the 'earth' reference is not at the same potential. When the chassis ground is not bonded to 'earth' ground, the potential can be described as 'floating' at a different potential than earth ground.

5 hours ago, Alzo said:

I turned the mains off and the smart metre carries on turning? Went from 5286 to 5290 when mains is off. Whats going on??? 

Plain and simple. Get the city council out and let them explain why meter is billing you if your power is switched off. They can also switch off on their side and check if the meter is still turning.

Forget the technical stuff like floating earth's or boats etc. Let the munic explain what is going on while you keep dumb. 

Edited March 5, 20242 yr by Scorp007

Thanks Cobus, whats the end result of earth floating around, it doesnt sound good at all potentially.

3 hours ago, Alzo said:

whats the end result of earth floating around

It is a safety issue to prevent, in case of an electrical fault, that a person becomes the path of least resistance, in other words, being electrocuted.  In lower voltages, it wreaks havoc on data transmission and other electronic equipment (different ground planes create ground loop etc.)

Hi guys

Yesterday I flipped the earth leakage switch off and the metre carries on turning. Today I turned the mains and the earth leakage off and it stopped, is this normal? 

14 minutes ago, Alzo said:

Hi guys

Yesterday I flipped the earth leakage switch off and the metre carries on turning. Today I turned the mains and the earth leakage off and it stopped, is this normal? 

OK... so if you turn the main breaker off (I presume this to be the breaker that isolates the whole property) then we would expect that to stop the meter as the connection between your property and the grid is broken.

So this gives us some degree of confidence that the meter is correctly linked to your property, and that nobody has snuck a connection into the street box that effects your meter.

Earth leakage doesn't necessarily kill all circuits in the house. That is my understanding, and I hasten to add that I am not an electrician.

If the previous test where the meter kept on moving was undertaken by you tripping the earth leakage, then it looks like you have something in your house, not connected to EL, that was drawing that power.
 

On 2024/03/04 at 1:42 PM, Alzo said:

East london. These metres were rammed in 2 years ago. My bill was 1220kw to 1350kw max. Smart metre now says 1220kw then 1750kw then 2104kw from one month to the next.  NO XTRA UTILITIES. Its erratic and not possible EL has highest electricity cost in SA at R2.86 plus vat Kwh.

Everybody complains , Bcm refuses to listen. Can metre be chkd. Some results are bizzare.

Hi Alzo,

 

I had this meter up until about mid 2022, on prepaid and usage suddenly increased drastically to a point where it was consuming (yes I say it because it definitely wasn’t the load on the house) 350 units in 3-4 days…I logged a call with CityPower here in Jhb and they came out (after 2 weeks and constantly nagging for service) and replaced the meter. I asked if this is a common issue, to which they replied “yes, they get this alot” citing the load shedding as the issue with the constant drop and reconnection of power. How true this is I dont know. The other issue I had during this time was the date and time on the meter and the keypad were not aligned and not correct.

 

It was replaced with the meter in the pics. Had no issues post-replacement and usage returned to “normal” in that 350 would last about 10-12 days or thereabouts. Then had solar installed in May last year and continued issue free with the meter.

Thanks Carl

I see everyone elsewhere has smart pre-paid??? This is odd. In EL the Smart metres were shoved in under cover of darkness. You couldn't convert to prepaid. This metre has been erratic from day one 2021. The EL municipality says you must prove it. They are not interested in historical usage. 

7 hours ago, Alzo said:

Thanks Carl

I see everyone elsewhere has smart pre-paid??? This is odd. In EL the Smart metres were shoved in under cover of darkness. You couldn't convert to prepaid. This metre has been erratic from day one 2021. The EL municipality says you must prove it. They are not interested in historical usage. 

I would escalate it to a higher level like the engineering department and mention there are many reports about these meters misbehaving. Or try and be kind and ask if the cannot just change it and test. 

Good day all

This is many months past the fact, but i might have an answer for you. I have had a post paid smart meter for many years and consume around 1000KW a month, working out to around 30 to 40 kw per day.

In may 2024 i installed a solar system. 12kw 3 phase inverter, 14 555w panels, 2x 5 kwh batteries. and at the same time installed smart switches/timers for my geysers.

the first months bill was 1500KW working out to 50kw per day. after installation and the solar was producing around 20kw per day. so technically 70kw per day. it doubled.

Troubleshooting found some strange goings on. if i did an 808 and the city power hexing smart meter(instant consumption) i was seeing 1.2kw then 2kw and 700w( but the inverter was showing no grid input.

Seeing at loadshedding has not been a thing for some time. i have just been checking the batteries at night and at around 50% i put the house on bypass. noting there is no grid input into the inverter since if i isolate the issue of the random reading. so for the last year this has been my daily manual process.

i have now got fed up and watched a German video with English ai generated subtitles, in this video it pointed out some of my inverter configurations were wrong. i corrected those last night and had no issues.

an till this morning 9.30am when my geyser comes on. even though the solar is full supporting the load the instant reading on the hexing smart meter was 700w then 1.1kw. random again. i dropped the breaker to the smart switches/timers/geyser. and instantly the crazy reading stopped.

researching this it was to be a common issue with these "smart meters" from power providers globally. the wave form produced from the smart switch/time energizes the "smart meter" and makes it over read/go crazy.

im working on the long term solution now. but i have cbi astute smart switch/timer.

hope this help point you in the correct direction to isolate your issue.