Reason for increase in my POCO bill

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mbrooke said:
Correct- though if metering only two legs of 120/208Y, you would need a 12S (ie, 5th jaw). Assuming the OP's profile matches the location in question most likely its a single stator, single current coil meter (2 wire) which would require a neutral for the voltage coil:


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Very true, I agree.

But here is one theory I have: If the neutral and line are somehow swapped at the meter, grounding the neutral after the meter can cause current flow from the utility neutral through the meter's current coil and down through the ground going back to the LV supply transformer. This current could be substantial given the right network conditions, ie if all the customers are TT and the voltage drop across the utility neutral is great enough.
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Nice Theory, however if that were the case, somewhere along the line of 500 to 1500 amps would have had the flow on that neutral for the 12 to 24 hour., depending on sahibs average electrical use, to make that meter read three times normal for the month. Pretty sure that amount of current would fry anything in a residence.

I don't know about India, and it's been too long since we had a mechanical meter here, however I seem to recall that if the Poco estimated your power use for that month, that it was on the bill somewhere for that month. I still think that low previous month's estimations combined with an actual meter reading when the neutral was fixed is what resulted in the higher bill.
 
JFletcher said:
Nice Theory, however if that were the case, somewhere along the line of 500 to 1500 amps would have had the flow on that neutral for the 12 to 24 hour., depending on sahibs average electrical use, to make that meter read three times normal for the month. Pretty sure that amount of current would fry anything in a residence.

I don't know about India, and it's been too long since we had a mechanical meter here, however I seem to recall that if the Poco estimated your power use for that month, that it was on the bill somewhere for that month. I still think that low previous month's estimations combined with an actual meter reading when the neutral was fixed is what resulted in the higher bill.
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True- but I am rooting on not knowing when the neutral was disconnected from ground after it was restored and that the OP's monthly current draw might be very low. Its a guess, a wild one, however all in all I think you will turn out as being right. In a city with many, many customers and EM meters the bills are probably estimated.
 
mivey said:
Then perhaps you had current and some kind of wild floating voltage at the meter that made a high V*I product.
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Wouldn't the floating voltage be lower than 230 volts? I am not saying you are wrong as this is your area of expertise- just curious how the physics of an EM meter work to produce such a high reading with low fluctuating voltage on my part.
 
mbrooke said:
Wouldn't the floating voltage be lower than 230 volts? I am not saying you are wrong as this is your area of expertise- just curious how the physics of an EM meter work to produce such a high reading with low fluctuating voltage on my part.
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Did not really give it a lot of thought other than thinking if the current was close to normal then that only left the voltage to be crazy abnormal to result in such a crazy amount of power recorded.

I just made a wild swing that if the meter had no voltage reference then it might have floated to most anything. Sorry but I did not give it much expert thought but just a passing thought based on tying down one of the two variables in the power equation.
 
mivey said:
Did not really give it a lot of thought other than thinking if the current was close to normal then that only left the voltage to be crazy abnormal to result in such a crazy amount of power recorded.

I just made a wild swing that if the meter had no voltage reference then it might have floated to most anything. Sorry but I did not give it much expert thought but just a passing thought based on tying down one of the two variables in the power equation.
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Maybe if the ground is arcing or intermittent the voltage coil could saturate from a none sinusoidal wave? Any guess is a good one. I myself have trouble believing that the meter actually recorded 3x the amount of energy normally used in a month.
 
mbrooke: In an electromechanical energy meter also when the load neutral is shared with other load neutrals, its reading may increase. But this is not shown in the image of your post 17.
 
Sahib said:
mbrooke: In an electromechanical energy meter also when the load neutral is shared with other load neutrals, its reading may increase. But this is not shown in the image of your post 17.
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I am not picturing it- do you have a schematic representation of the scenario?
 
If the meter is the old mechanical dial type, a high single month could well be the result of misreading the dials.

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GoldDigger said:
If the meter is the old mechanical dial type, a high single month could well be the result of misreading the dials.

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If that were the case, then he should see a negative bill the following month, given the size of the potential error.
 
GoldDigger said:
If the meter is the old mechanical dial type, a high single month could well be the result of misreading the dials.

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Absolutely. Before Rural POCO here got smart meters, users did need to submit meter reading each month when they make payment. Yes you could cheat if you wanted - they did from time to time read the meters themselves to correct anyone that was off. Some didn't exactly cheat so much as they just made their own estimate at times. All comes out in the end whenever it does get an accurate reading reported though. Well sort of anyway, there is different summer and winter rates for most customers here, as peak demand is during summer months and winter they have a lower rate somewhat just to encourage more energy usage during those months.

Had seen a few cases where someone wondered what was wrong when they got a higher then usual electric bill - come to find they misread meter or otherwise wrote wrong reading down.
 
kwired said:
Absolutely. Before Rural POCO here got smart meters, users did need to submit meter reading each month when they make payment. Yes you could cheat if you wanted - they did from time to time read the meters themselves to correct anyone that was off. Some didn't exactly cheat so much as they just made their own estimate at times. All comes out in the end whenever it does get an accurate reading reported though. Well sort of anyway, there is different summer and winter rates for most customers here, as peak demand is during summer months and winter they have a lower rate somewhat just to encourage more energy usage during those months.

Had seen a few cases where someone wondered what was wrong when they got a higher then usual electric bill - come to find they misread meter or otherwise wrote wrong reading down.
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I remember in my parents' house that the water meter was in the basement. Every month or quarter the water company would send you a post card that had the dials printed on it just like your meter. You'd fill in the card by drawing each pointer to the appropriate number on the dial. The dial was set up so that only the last pointer (least significant digit) might fall between two numbers. Then you'd note the date of the reading and drop the card in the mail.
 
I ran some ground calcs and with just a ground rod in very good soil at about 140 ft and there would be significant neutral voltage rise so I doubt the equipment would run.

So, when you connected the neutral to ground the ground must have been bonded back to the source neutral. This would result in a good enough return path even if the voltage was lower than normal due to the voltage rise in the bond wire. This voltage would have been back-fed to the meter and resulted in close to normal billing.

I'm not sure what happened but I don't think it was due to a wiring issue. I'm voting for a reading/billing issue at this point.
 
mivey: Though TT system on our side and TN-S on POCO side, the individual ground rod resistance is very low, less than 1 ohm.
 
Sahib said:
mivey: Though TT system on our side and TN-S on POCO side, the individual ground rod resistance is very low, less than 1 ohm.
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What is your soil resistivity? Rod length? A one ohm rod is pretty low. Not impossible but still...
 
Sahib said:
I live in an apartment.One evening, there was a problem with POCO neutral (disconection)and single phase supply to my apartment was off. It was high summer and no UPS in my apartment. My family members could not manage with candles. To alleviate the discomfort and to be sleep through the night, the neutral was connected to ground after the POCO meter and Lo and behold! The power supply to my apartment resumed and we slept peacefully. Next morning, the POCO neutral was set right. At the end of month I received POCO bill for electricity consumption for my apartment. I was shocked to find the bill amount was three times my usual bimonthly amount. I surmise that the return current that flowed over ground instead of through neutral during that neutral broken period might have encountered significant resistance, the power loss of which might have. increased the POCO meter reading. What are your views? Thanks.
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I would look closely at the bill to make sure all the charges are for power use and not some other type of charges.

I would think that if there was a significant amount of resistance then you would have had a large voltage drop and equipment such as AC units or refrigerators would not work very well.

You can always question the power company. call and talk to one of their engineers.
 
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