Thursday 28 February 2008

[Progress.098] Integral Energy vs Energy Australia

We always thought that the Electrical meter boxes are all the same, but according to our electrician Frank (not the one from builder!) there's a huge difference.

The other day he had a quick look at our meter box and said it's installed incorrectly. He then explained that for 3 phase powers (we have air conditioning installed), depends on which area you belong to, there's a big difference between Integral Energy and Energy Australia.

According to Frank, Integral Energy only accepts single phase analog meter, so houses with 3 phase power have to install 3 single phase analog meters. Energy Australia accepts 3 phase digital meter (more advance?), therefore houses with 3 phase power have to install only one 3 phase digital meter.

He said our area belongs to Integral Energy but the way our meter box was installed is for single 3 phase digital meter (for Energy Australia), that's why it's wrong. Have at look at the box below (photo taken a few days ago), can you work out what he means?

According to Frank, we have 3 pairs of red wires, 1 pair per phase and the last black one is ground, that's why this is for one 3 phase meter... Do you understand? It took me a while to pick that up...

We then ask him how does he know that our area belongs to Integral Energy? He said it's very easy, just have a look at the poles. As shown below, if you see just pure numbers that were nailed separately for each individual number and in yellow colour, it's Integral Energy. Energy Austrlaia always use a white plate, and the number starts with 2 letters.

We reported this to our builder and they fixed it very quickly. When we were there this morning it's already fixed. As shown below, we now have 3 sets of wires, each set have 2 red wires and 1 black ground wire.

Unfortunately our area can't have the more advanced digital single meter, and we have to squeeze 3 analog ones together. Hope that doesn't look too ugly...

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