Power Usage Monitoring @ Mains

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Npstewart

Senior Member
Im working on an apartment project with special financing that requires the total power to the building to be monitored and recorded. Because this is an apartment, all the metering is done within meter centers with small inline meters. Does anyone know of an easy way to monitor the power of these buildings that connects to software?

Anything I have found so far is only rated up to 800A. Right now, I have two 1600A services which are separate runs to two separate transformers via (5) Sets of #600 kcmil Al.

I contacted my power company to see if they would be willing to put CTs within the transformer with a separate meter for the purposes of monitoring but they said they could not do that. This would have been the easiest way but their requirements are very rigid.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
 
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mjmike

Senior Member
We had the power monitored for 1 month at the mains of a facility with 15min intervals. Ended up with 2879 readings. Rented a fluke meter, model 1736 I believe. It was a 240V 1-phase service, 600A. Maybe this meter will work for you. It worked good. You would need 2 of them if 2 services.
 
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zbang

Senior Member
Location
Roughly 5346 miles from Earls Court
Do you need to monitor the service, the individual apartments or both? Is this a one-time thing or do you need on-going metering?

The PoCo should be able to give you something like a contact closure off their meters and there are multiple products for sub-metering (all which can connect to a computer).

If this is a one-time thing, a Fluke or two are the easiest.
 
zog

zog

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
Npstewart said:
Im working on an apartment project with special financing that requires the total power to the building to be monitored and recorded. Because this is an apartment, all the metering is done within meter centers with small inline meters. Does anyone know of an easy way to monitor the power of these buildings that connects to software?

Anything I have found so far is only rated up to 800A. Right now, I have two 1600A services which are separate runs to two separate transformers via (5) Sets of #600 kcmil Al.

I contacted my power company to see if they would be willing to put CTs within the transformer with a separate meter for the purposes of monitoring but they said they could not do that. This would have been the easiest way but their requirements are very rigid.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

What type of breakers are your mains? Depending on the type of trip unit you have it might be as easy as enabling a function
 
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Npstewart

Senior Member
Jraef said:
This is a nice simple one wherein the electronics are embedded into split core CTs, so you don't need a separate enclosure and you don't need to disconnect the cables to install it.
http://www.veris.com/Item/H8035-1600-4.aspx

The output is Modbus, lots of systems can read that.
Click to expand...

I like this one a lot.

To give a little more info, this building has not begun construction yet so I am not limited as to what I can use or specify on the drawings. I basically need the data to be compliled into a easy format as kWH & kW which is then sent off once a year on a permanent basis. The house meter / tenant meter does not need to be separated which is why I thought it would be easiest just to monitoring all the power through the main service conductors.
 
gadfly56

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
mjmike said:
We had the power monitored for 1 month at the mains of a facility with 15min intervals. Ended up with 2879 readings. Rented a fluke meter, model 1736 I believe. It was a 240V 1-phase service, 600A. Maybe this meter will work for you. It worked good. You would need 2 of them if 2 services.
Click to expand...

This is for a permanent installation.
 
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