Loose wire termination and Watt/Hour Meter

[rafael rivera]

Hopping you all are doing well specially in this tough times in history.
my question is; Can a loose connection on the line side of a KW/H meter or may be on
the load side of the POCO pedestal talking about a service lateral, would affect an elctric bill
showing a higher than normal KW/H comsumption.

Thank you for any comments or corrections. Your input will be greatlly appreciated,
it has been a long argument with POCO's rep's to try to solve numerous problems.
I need to be corrected or educated about this issue.

Regards to all.

 

[Sierrasparky]

loose connections should have no effect.

 

[rcwilson]

Loose connections could overheat under load causing some watts loss. But if it is on the utility side of the meter there is no effect on the customer meter readings.

If the loose connection is on the meter leads, the wiring might have a voltage drop to the meter making the meter read less kwh than actual, not more.

If the loose connection is on the customer side of the meter, it could cause marginally higher readings, but it would be the customer's responsibility. The kW needed to make a noticeable difference in meter readings would probably be large enough to cause a noticeable heat rise or even a failure at the loose connection.

If it is a three phase service a loose connection on one phase might cause a significant voltage drop and the unbalanced voltages will affect the efficiency of three phase motors.

But in all cases, I don't think the losses would be enough to detect it from meter readings.

 

[rafael rivera]

Thank you all for the response; it's all pretty much what I have argued.
One of the problems that I have encounter is the Primary Side Y Metering in some
industrial settings were I serve as a consultant is that even on an umbalance
condition cause by a loose termination on the line side of the meters, the meters are going to
read an average consumption the loses are going to be reflected on the transformers upsteams.