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Gary, If this is a new digital meter, it may be accumulating all energy without regard to direction. That is the way the utilities purchase them, to prevent energy theft, so that is the default configuration from the meter manufacturers. When purchasing a digital kWh meter to use for metering production per Outback's instructions, you must specify that the meter is for net metering. Outback should warn about that in their instructions! It is pretty easy to wire the Outback metering scheme incorrectly. To test for that: 1. Disable the solar and battery charger, then confirm that the meter disk does not spin when there is a load is turned on the protected loads panel. 2. Disable the loads and solar, then force a bulk charge and confirm that the meter spins backwards. Even the digital meters show you what way power is flowing with a simulated disk: dots progressing to the right is forward, left is backwards. Kent Osterberg Blue Mountain Solar Gary Easton wrote: Hello, I am having trouble metering a system with an Outback 3648 serving a protected loads panel. I need a way to accurately measure the production. I have a dual stator 12s meter installed with the "AC in" coming in the bottom and out the top and the AC from the inverter going in the top and out the bottom with a neutral from the E-panel connected to the fifth leg. The meter is not reading anything close to the Outback. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Gary Easton Appalachian Renewable Power Systems NABCEP Certified Solar PV NABCEP Certified Solar Thermal 740-277-8498Kelly, When I came across language like this in an RFP, my assumption was that we needed to work with a specialty lightning protection subcontractor, a firm listed by UL. I would call them up, give them a project description and request a quote, which I would build into our cost estimate for the project. Included in their scope of work is providing a ³UL Listed Lightning Protection Certificate.² You can include that scope of work as a line item in our proposal. If the proposal requires that you include resumes for key team members, you might also include the lightning company¹s bio as it shows you¹ve done your due diligence. On the projects that I managed in this fashion, the lightning protection company always came in after our construction was substantially complete. There may be cases where you want to coordinate the that scope of work differently and get them on site earlier. They should be able to tell you what will work best, based on the general project description and your specific equipment grounding scheme. David Brearley, Senior Technical Editor SolarPro magazine NABCEP Certified PV Installer [email protected] On 7/31/10 3:28 PM, "Kelly Keilwitz, Whidbey Sun & Wind" <[email protected]> wrote: |
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