Rocky Mountain Power arrived in just a couple of days of my request and performed the meter swap. I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures.
The technician was very careful. The safety considerations were obviously important. He wore heavy gloves and a full face shield. Where previously he would have just broken the meter seal and yanked the old meter off by hand, he now employed a very heavy duty plastic tube-like device which surrounds the meter and clamps on, and, after a slight tug, removes the old meter. The new meter is installed using the same tool.
He explained that they do this now because so many meters have exploded because of some short that occurs when removing or installing the meter.
The longest part of this process was spent in the RMP truck programming the new 'smart' meter.
The new meter, among other things, records a) power sucked from the utility (consumed), and b) power pushed to the utility (produced). Our new power bill will show these two numbers, calculate the difference, and bill us for that difference.
So, if in a month we consume 70 kWh and produce 50 kWh then we will have to pay for 20 kWh. If we produce more in a month than we consume then it gets 'banked' for the next month. Anything still banked at the end of March of each year simply disappears. Since our intention was to minimize peak usage we are unlikely to have anything banked at the end of March.
The new meter also has an animated display and shows the two important numbers. If you look closely at the area highlighted in yellow you'll see a bar with an arrow pointing to the left. That's a good sign! It means our solar modules are producing more electricity than we are consuming and that the extra is being fed back into the utility. The bar animates and the faster it runs the more power is feeding in whatever direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment