Help with consumption meter on Envoy

I got consumption meter installed by my installer yesterday. I strongly believe its not reading right. When i am charging my electric car, its pulling 32amps but shows less then 3 on the installer toolkit. I checked terminals and they all seem to be in proper place. What could be the issue?



Do you see anything wrong in this image?

Sorry to ask you a basic question, but did you login to your account and enable the consumption CT in Enlighten web or in the app? I’m adding one next week and my installer mentioned that it needs to be enabled in software.

Yes, its enabled and i see consumption in app.

What are the two taps on the mains just below the CT’s? If they are the input from your Solar panels your connection is called supply-side. All you Solar power is feeding first into the grid and not very much is self consumption. To make best use of self consumption it should be moved to breakers on the lowest position from the mains feed in. There the solar power will be used first by you house circuits and then the excess feed into the grid.
You should provide a diagram of your whole system in order for anyone to answer your questions. What time are you charging the car batteries?

I was wondering the same thing. I’m just guessing based on the little that can be seen in the photo, but it looks like the main terminations shown to the bus bars of the panel board which would put both the panel and the taps on the load side of the utility meter. If that’s the case, then the CTs as installed should be reading net current and thus net power. Also, based in the load only readings, there may be something wrong with the setup. Power Factors that low (0.11 and 0.33) are pretty uncommon. There also seems to be a scaling issue. Apparent power is reported as 934 kVA on one line but is 934 VA (419+515) on the detail.

You are right about the power factors they are extremely low. My circuits’ PF run upwards of .90 or higher. Those power factors suggest he is running high inductive machinery such as a workshop or manufacturing setup, but there is too little information to make a judgement.

I am pretty new to this so wasn’t sure how much info i needed to provide. The 2 taps right below the CT’s are input from solar system. I am not sure if I can move the taps into the breakers due to the inspection from NYC has already been done. Are there any cons of having the taps directly onto main lines?

This is how I have it setup in my Envoy (image from Enphase manager)

The CT’s have sticker which states “This side towards Source”, i have that side where power is coming FROM my energy company. Is that correct?

I looks like you’ve selected the right configuration although a photo of your installation with a wider frame would be helpful. That said, your power company is your source, not your load. The sticker that indicates “This side towards load” should be facing away from the power company, not towards it.

Thanks for trying to help. My mistake, the sticker says this side towards SOURCE. So I have it right.
Here’s the pic before CTs were installed.


To add more datapoint to the weirdness, the consumption goes up with production…

Those CTs are definitely installed upside down. The CTs are measuring Net which means if they are installed correctly - Consumption = Net + Production.

For example, assume your load is 6 kW and generation is 4 kW. That means you are importing 2 kW Net. Now if the CT are reversed, then Consumption would incorrectly read -2+4=2 kW.

Now assume the load stays the same but generation increases to 5 kW, the incorrectly installed CTs will report -1 kW so Consumption will report as -1+5=4 kW, increasing with production.

Reverse your CTs and I would guess that most, if not all of your issues will go away.

I think i tried and consumption went into negative while there was no generation during late evening. I’ll tey again and see what readings i get. Thx

The CT in the first image with the blue outline measures your NET consumption. That is your generation minus the loads. Where minus refers to you actual consumption. You are measuring NET and Consumption.
Do you have ONLY two CT’s or are there four CT’s? This is important because you have in effect split phase power. Each lead into your electrical panel feed one set of circuits in your home. The Power comes in on two phases which are exactly out of phase. If you measure only one of these lines you will see only about 1/2 of the power you are actually consuming. You can use one CT to do this but you will be unable to determine how much power is used by each line. This is done by running the two incoming lines usually labeled L1 and L2. Th third line is called the Neutral which completes the circuit for each of the two power mains. This reference will explain how CT’s can be used to measure your total power produced and consumed. Pages 3 and following explain how the use of one or two CT’s may be employed.

Please feel free to message me any time.

Larry Smiser