Final Clarification (Again)

Yeah, in light of the lists of acceptable meters that I posted yesterday (one of which included mine), I AGAIN asked my broker if my meter was sufficient.  Hey, it's on a friggin' list.  I know they're totally annoyed with me, but I feel like there are people relying on me to help clear this up.

They replied that the new meter is "in addition to the electric meter installed by the local utility to measure the home or business' electric consumption."  (that's a quote from the NJ BPU declaration).

They added that "if the meter you are speaking about is your utility net meter, then it is not sufficient to meet the requirements of the NJ BPU mandate."

I dunno', I guess I'm supposed to feel like an idiot, but I just don't.  This shouldn't be so complicated, but I still haven't seen a simple explanation as to what equipment is needed in order to continue to accrue SRECs.  After asking various questions of various people I'm now satisfied that my setup doesn't cut the mustard,

 but it shouldn't have been so difficult to figure that out.

A simple paragraph and maybe a schematic or diagram showing what is needed and where it fits into the existing system would do wonders to clear this up for me and the dozens of blog readers that are e-mailing me.  Part of the problem is that there really isn't an advocate for the small solar producers, somebody who has a stake in getting this message delivered clearly.

Lists of Approved Meters

I just noticed that the New Jersey Clean Energy website has a page which includes a link to two lists of electric meters, along with an indication as to whether the meter has been approved for meeting ANSI CR.1-2008 standard of +/- 2% accuracy (as of December 1, only meters which meet this standard can be used to report readings for generation of SRECs).

Here are the two lists on that page.  I'm inferring that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJ BPU) is saying that if it's approved on one of these lists, it's good enough for them.  It might be worth a few minutes to look.  Maybe your meter is good enough:

New York State Department of Public Service

GoSolarCalifornia

My meter (General Electric I-210+C, installed by PSE&G on July 25, 2012) is marked as "approved" on the New York list but as "not approved" on the California list.  I just e-mailed my broker about it, because they seem to be the gatekeeper here, but I don't have much hope.  I already annoyed the hell out of them a couple of weeks ago and was finally told that my meter doesn't meet the standard.  I just figured that now that I'd seen a list, I'd ask again and point the list out.

"About Five-Hundred Bucks"

Just for the heck of it, I emailed a local solar installer and asked for a ballpark estimate for installing a revenue grade meter.  He just replied that it would be in the neighborhood of $500.  I'm just assuming that he knew what we were talking about, even though I really don't.  Does that make sense?

So at least we know what we're dealing with.   Another way to express the amount would be "About seven SRECs worth..."