Itron Digital Power Model CL200 Meter Failure
RFI-EMI-GUY
I have Progress Energy here in Florida. About a year ago they installed
a new digital power meter made by Itron (model CL200 *1647852*) which
is read remotely via RF. We have been getting screwy bills the last
couple of months which prompted us to go out and read the display. It
turns out the display is totally blank. It used to flash "8888s" and
then the accrued reading. Now there is nothing reading on the display.
Questions
1) Do these meters retain the data even if the display fails? I assume
there is a lithium battery powering the entire works, hopefully they
were bright enough to maintain the memory in flash.
3) Can they install a battery in the field and show me the reading
without "doing magic" back at the shop?
3) What recourse do I have if the utility has no accurate reading of the
meter? I have been using the average billing method and we have been
making improvements to reduce consumption, yet the past bills seem high
and erroneous?
When the installer came out to first install the digital meters in my
neighborhood a year ago, he somehow "lost" my meter when I asked him to
show it to me for the final reading. I had to convince the utility that
the last reading was wrong impossible. (digits were transposed by the
reader)
--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©
"Use only Genuine Interocitor Parts" Tom Servo ;-P
prote...@gmail.com
THEY SHOULD EXTEND YOU A """"CUSTOMER SERVICE COURTESY"""" AND CHARGE
YOU THE BASIC FLAT RATE FOR YOUR LAST ANALOG READING OR JUST START
FRESH FROM THE DIGITAL METER
I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS THEY SEEM TO ALWAYS END UP GETTING WHAT
THEY WANT
HOW ABOUT THE CUSTOMER - STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS TO CONTINUE WITH
THEM AND REQUEST A CLEAN SLATE FROM THEM
I AM PROTEUS
RFI-EMI-GUY
"Customer Service Courtesy" Hahahah! You must be kidding!
Proteus, could you please PROBE Progress Energy with your omnipresent
power!
I called this AM and they again make no promises of when they will
resolve this!
Charles Perry
"RFI-EMI-GUY" <Rhyo...@NETTALLY.COM> wrote in message
news:49d90d5f$0$32058$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
>
> I have Progress Energy here in Florida. About a year ago they installed a
> new digital power meter made by Itron (model CL200 *1647852*) which is
> read remotely via RF. We have been getting screwy bills the last couple of
> months which prompted us to go out and read the display. It turns out the
> display is totally blank. It used to flash "8888s" and then the accrued
> reading. Now there is nothing reading on the display.
CL200 is the "class" of meter. It means it is a 200 amp meter. It is not
the model number. It is likely a Centron. The number you give is probably
part of the serial number. It is possible the display is deactivated on
purpose. It can be done.
>
> Questions
> 1) Do these meters retain the data even if the display fails? I assume
> there is a lithium battery powering the entire works, hopefully they were
> bright enough to maintain the memory in flash.
The display can fail while the rest of the meter works fine.
>
> 3) Can they install a battery in the field and show me the reading without
> "doing magic" back at the shop?
If the display is bad, a battery will not enable you to see the reading.
They may be able to use a portable reader to read the meter and show you the
reading.
>
> 3) What recourse do I have if the utility has no accurate reading of the
> meter? I have been using the average billing method and we have been
> making improvements to reduce consumption, yet the past bills seem high
> and erroneous?
The state utility commissions have set policies on how these situations are
handled.
>
> When the installer came out to first install the digital meters in my
> neighborhood a year ago, he somehow "lost" my meter when I asked him to
> show it to me for the final reading. I had to convince the utility that
> the last reading was wrong impossible. (digits were transposed by the
> reader)
How do you know your bills are erroneous? What accurate meter have you used
to verify that your consumption is lower than recorded by your revenue
meter?
RFI-EMI-GUY
We went through a cold spell and conserved on use of the AC/HeatPump.
They acknowledged an incorrect "average" billing based on
"estimates"(quite bogus) and reissued another although there was no
actual reading of the meter done. When we went out to check the numbers
the meter was totally blank. It had displayed a consumption value
previously. My next door neighbors meter reads a value, now mine is
blank. It does seem premature since the unit is only a year old. Perhaps
since it faces the sun a good part of the day it gave out. I have no
other meter but am considering a submeter arrangement.
Progress Energy seems to be in no real hurry to fix the meter. It has
been over a week since we first reported the problem. I think it has
been out of order for two months according to the billing records being
"estimated".
Charles Perry
<snip>
>
> We went through a cold spell and conserved on use of the AC/HeatPump.
> They acknowledged an incorrect "average" billing based on
> "estimates"(quite bogus) and reissued another although there was no actual
> reading of the meter done. When we went out to check the numbers the meter
> was totally blank. It had displayed a consumption value previously. My
> next door neighbors meter reads a value, now mine is blank. It does seem
> premature since the unit is only a year old. Perhaps since it faces the
> sun a good part of the day it gave out. I have no other meter but am
> considering a submeter arrangement.
>
> Progress Energy seems to be in no real hurry to fix the meter. It has been
> over a week since we first reported the problem. I think it has been out
> of order for two months according to the billing records being
> "estimated".
>
>
> --
> Joe Leikhim K4SAT
> "The RFI-EMI-GUY"©
>
> "Use only Genuine Interocitor Parts" Tom Servo ;-P
It is not uncommon for a utility to estimate a bill when they have no
reading. Some do this on purpose (reading the meter every other month).
Sometimes it is done because a reading was accidentally skipped. The meter
is just like an odometer, it does not matter if they over or under estimate
for a month as the next time the meter is read you will "catch up". The
fact that you thought the estimate was incorrect does not indicate a meter
error. The fact that they are not getting readings may mean the meter is
dead. It could also mean that only the comm module is dead.
Charles Perry P.E.
RFI-EMI-GUY
us for the mistake but the question remains as to what the true reading
is. Hopefully the data is intact in the memory.
Dave Martindale
>It is not uncommon for a utility to estimate a bill when they have no
>reading. Some do this on purpose (reading the meter every other month).
>Sometimes it is done because a reading was accidentally skipped. The meter
>is just like an odometer, it does not matter if they over or under estimate
>for a month as the next time the meter is read you will "catch up".
That's only true if all of your usage is billed at the same rate. Here
(BC Canada), the first N kWh/day are billed at a lower rate, and
anything above that at a higher rate. If a reading is too high one
month, you pay for the extra at the high rate. Then next month you pay
less - but the savings are at the lower rate. The same happens when one
month is artificially low and the next month's reading is correct. In
both cases, the temporary error actually costs money.
Our last meter reading was 1000 kWh too high, so we have first-hand
experience with this. That's double our normal usage, so we noticed.
As it happens, *all* of our true usage should have been billed at the
low rate, and almost all of the erroneous consumption would have been
billed at the higher rate. Without correction, we would have paid $72
too much for this 2-month billing period, then saved $60 next period
(assuming the next reading was correct). That's a net loss of $12.
I suspect it was a meter reader who just doesn't understand how to read
the old analog meters. Unlike odometers, where each digit except the
lowest one moves only when the next-lower digit rolls over, mechanical
dial kWh meters have all of the hands rotating all of the time. If the
correct reading is 5905, the highest dial's pointer is pointing to 5.9
(i.e. essentially 6), not to 5. The second-highest dial is pointing to
9.0. If you didn't understand how the meter worked, you could read it
as 6905, not 5905. The fact that alternate dials rotate in opposite
directions doesn't help either.
I guess having new meters that just display the usage as numbers means
that the skill of reading the old meters is vanishing - even among meter
readers.
Dave
daestrom
"Dave Martindale" <da...@cs.ubc.ca> wrote in message
news:gro2g7$18l$1...@swain.cs.ubc.ca...
When I was consulting with DTE, we had some 'fun' with this. We read meters
monthly and had to try and detect this sort of read error. If the reader
transposed a pair of digits or read the 'wrong side' of a digit (such as
your example of reading 6905 instead of 5905), we could detect it if it was
in the first couple of digits. When consumption jumped so far in one month
we flagged it and went with an estimate. If the next month's reading was
also high, then we'd go with the reading and assume the customer added some
new load (pool, A/C, whatever). But too many estimates in a row and the
algorithm gave up and went with the meter reading.
A lot of that was supposed to go away as they converted to digital RF read
meters, but I had moved on about that time so I never heard for sure.
Seems like the front read-out of the meter has to work for the customer to
be able to read it. A quick call to the PSC complaint department should get
the meter fixed pretty quick. Assuming it is readily accessible by the
utility, they should be able to swap it out in mere minutes (after taking a
final reading of the old one).
daestrom
> Dave