jaggedben
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern California
- Occupation
- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
You don't do services with multiple meters either? I agree with both of the others, a 'line side tap' is usually after the meter, but can sensibly be before it if it goes to a new additional meter and makes sense under the tariff.Anything AFTER the metering is up to the electrician/designer.
In a CT can, as long as it's after the metering do whatever you want.
But taps before the metering is a no no with us
You would be amazed at home many people ask us if they can tap ahead of the meter. Especially homeowners and small solar companies.
And I don’t understand why they ask. When they export they are paying for what they are producing because it's on the wrong side of the meter. We don’t net meter, but we do bill by TOU, and a different rate for export.
I have at least two to three conversations a year regarding this very thing. Some of these solar companies popping up really have no clue of how to interconnect.
Salespeople. The actual designers and installers would almost never make such a mistake. Or, perhaps it's a company coming in from Texas where some places do it differently.
You know FWIW, you are always saying things like this more than the rest of us and I'm realizing it must be because Texas doesn't really regulate net-metering at the state level. Whereas in California, the basic net-metering law applies statewide, so here it really is basically the same everywhere. It took a few years in the 2010s for some places to get over their local interpretations about supply side connections but I don't really hear about that anymore.There are different ways to interconnect, and the rules for doing so vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There is a POCO near here where connecting on the utility side of the revenue meter is the only way to do it.
It all depends on the tariff. If you get paid a flat rate for producing solar regardless of consumption, as some places do, then the solar meter can be on either side of the regular meter as long as billing knows how it's set up. Another case would be "virtual net metering" in California, where the solar credits go to multiple customer meters.Trying to think about it but getting a "server busy, please try again later" message from my brain![]()