Customer owned meter

[crispysonofa]

I have a customer that owns a piece of commercial property, they are renting out a small space out that has been vacant for a bit. The problem is that this unit is getting power from at least 2 other meters and is not setup with it's own meter. Are there any devices that could be used to meter the electric for the unit short of a service change? We are only talking about 3 or 4 circuits total nothing larger than 20 amps. I am thinking I could setup a sub panel with the circuits in question and use a customer owned meter or other device to keep track of the additional power used. Anyone have any insight? Thoughts?

 

[junkhound]

I have 4 extra meters in own house to keep track of WH, HP, well, and dryer. Used meter bases as junction boxes.

You can also get DIN rail kW-hr meter pretty reasonable cost.

 

[gadfly56]

I have 4 extra meters in own house to keep track of WH, HP, well, and dryer. Used meter bases as junction boxes.

You can also get DIN rail kW-hr meter pretty reasonable cost.

Are you allowed to use that lash-up to charge a tenant? Aren't there tariff/weights&measures restrictions?

 

[ptonsparky]

Not allowed here, but things are different.

 

[crispysonofa]

I have 4 extra meters in own house to keep track of WH, HP, well, and dryer. Used meter bases as junction boxes.

You can also get DIN rail kW-hr meter pretty reasonable cost.

Thanks for the insight, I might go with the din rail setups. I will notify them about the possible red tape but I think this will work out. Much appreciated!

 

[GoldDigger]

In many jurisdictions POCO's contract with you or state law prohibit reselling the power charged to your account. That means that you can look at the usage to decide on a fixed monthly fee to the customer as part of the rental, but you cannot bill directly on the basis of the meter reading.

 

[junkhound]

Are you allowed to use that lash-up to charge a tenant? Aren't there tariff/weights&measures restrictions?

no tenant, my own house so not a concern
however, from your and golddigger's comments, out of curiosity looked at local POCO (PSE) and found nothing in that regards.

If there is anything, it is probably buried in some local or state renter's protection law I'm not interested in trying to find :ashamed1: Can imagine some landlords trying to add a surcharge to tenants though?

I did find that using the POCO meter base as junction box is no-no (power theft concern primarily?)
The customer’s load monitoring equipment shall be installed only on the load side of
PSE’s metering. No customer equipment shall be allowed inside a meter or current
transformer enclosure. This includes customer load monitoring and control devices.
NOTE:
Meter base/socket and current transformer enclosures shall not be used as a
junction box.

 

[gobble]

Cumulative kwh meter

Cumulative kwh meter

The most simple would be buying a meter pan and purchasing meters from a solar supply company. The more expensive and more complicated route would be to install a system like emon dmon which is a CT based meter that needs supply voltage from the main source and voltage from the load source with ct's on each of the load legs.

 

[norcal]

no tenant, my own house so not a concern
however, from your and golddigger's comments, out of curiosity looked at local POCO (PSE) and found nothing in that regards.

If there is anything, it is probably buried in some local or state renter's protection law I'm not interested in trying to find :ashamed1: Can imagine some landlords trying to add a surcharge to tenants though?

I did find that using the POCO meter base as junction box is no-no (power theft concern primarily?)
The customer’s load monitoring equipment shall be installed only on the load side of
PSE’s metering. No customer equipment shall be allowed inside a meter or current
transformer enclosure. This includes customer load monitoring and control devices.
NOTE:
Meter base/socket and current transformer enclosures shall not be used as a
junction box.

That would not apply to a submeter, since the PoCo does not control it.