a question we get asked a lot on the channel is once you've had solar panels installed or solar
PV will your electricity meter run backwards so we could answer this question we've been on eBay
and bought an old style electricity meter and a more modern smart meter to answer the question so
just explain the little setup I've rigged up here we've got two electricity meters wide in series
so it should both record the same amount of energy flowing through them our old analog meter so power
supply coming in here from the socket through the meter out of the meter into the second meter and
then from that meter down to our two kilowatt fan heater so that's great just at the end of
summer we're getting red hot in here um the little setup here obviously don't do this at home with
any of your own electricity meter this is just our little workshop rig up if you do see meters
like this with the the seals hanging off and you know all sorts of possibly the wiring change I'd
suggest you're about become very familiar with the 1968 Theft Act section 13 obstruction of
electricity which does attract up to five years in prison or a hefty fine interesting thing on theft
and abstraction a little smart meter just come in here you'll see I've left the cover a little bit
loose but there's actually a little click inside you can hear the click there that is the micro
switch which actually tells the meter operator that the the cover has been removed a little top
tip for anyone there who thinks they can just remove the seals and it won't be recorded so
I'm going to run a few kilowatts of power in the forward direction by switching on our fan heater
and now that's finished I'm going to swap things around so we can run in the reverse Direction so
I've changed the wiring around to simulate as if the property was exporting power so you've got
solar panels on the roof and you're generating more power than the properties using itself so
now it's flowing back through the meter so imagine from this socket here this is the
wiring from the property and now the power is going in to what was the output of the smart
meter and then flowing back out to our analog meter and then from the input side of the analog
meter I've connected the fan heater so the fan heater imagine is now no longer a fan heater it
is function as if we were dumping this into the National Grid so what happens with our meters we
can see that the smart meter if I just switch the heater on we'll see that there's a little
flashing arrow there that indicates that the power is flowing back out of the property and if I look
at our meter there it's already registered one kilowatt hour of energy flowing back out of the
property and if we go to our previous import there's the three kilowatts that we imported in
flip across to our analog meter we'll see that the meter is indeed running backwards and so the the
previously recorded power has been subtracted which can create an interesting scenario so if
you've got solar panels fitted on your roof and one of these older analog style meters installed
any property this could be a highly advantageous situation because the feed-in tariffs currently
offered to export energy are not very generous we've seen numbers between zero and a few pence
per kilowatt hour so if you've got one of these meters what you're essentially doing is getting
a refund off your main bill of everything you export under the current price cap that means
that you could be getting essentially paid back 52 pence a kilowatt hour now will your energy
supplier allow that share your experience if you've had one of these fitted and solar come
along and you've had a few bills and the energy supply has got back in touch to suggest that
you have a smart meter a few more discoveries about meters we found out making this video or
older style non-smart meters that are digital will show red in the display or reverse energy
Direction and obviously won't subtract the numbers off the digital display and certain
types of analog meter won't run backwards they have a backstop to stop this scenario
from happening if you've had solar panels fitted your installer should advise you that your meter
is not fit for purpose and won't record export power at which stage it's up to you then to
take the initiative with your energy supplier and get that corrected if you're having solar
panels fitted and you don't want to play the energy markets or risk what could possibly be
illegal we'd suggest that you look at having a solar battery fitted and hop across to our eFIXX
energy channel to see an installation which has the whole solar and battery installation installed
so you can see what's involved in that one last word of caution we've reached the stage now where
we've exported more energy than we've imported and that's recorded on our smart meter but on
this meter here it means we've gone to numbers beyond where we started which means if you're
not speaking to your energy supply you're about to get the biggest energy bill you've ever had