Sounds like they are playing the catch me if you can game ... Mine is 240 vac, day in and day out.

Its Tuesday and they were able to lower the VAC alittle, Im currently at 248 - 249 VAC, So I made a called to SDG&E Emergency line, after explaining my situation and the many light blubs that popped already. The rep looked into the matter and found that there is a Pending work order still in place. She is going to contact me with a specific date.

Sounds like they have a regulator or parts on order to fix this problem.

Fred

You have learned well my grass-hopper

Thanks, Great Solar website.


Fred

i thought you guys should know that i finally emailed my electric company several days ago and complained of my consistant high voltage readings. well they sent somebody out and surprized me. he told me that less than or equal to 126vac per leg is fine. i told him that i could've been told that by email as i've not gotten readings higher than 126vac. he said he'd measure it with my electric meter pulled and low and behold he got about 127.4vac on each leg and called it in. my voltage is now higher than yours fred as 127.4x2=254.8vac. he told me it should be lower by this evening and it is now the following morning. i didn't check it yet, but i will. it pays to complain.
fred,
here is more in depth for an example of what that higher voltage means. for our example we will use a heating element with a resistance of 10ohms. nominal voltage is supposed to be 117vac, but we'll take it to 120vac as many appliances are now rated at that. using ohm's law of I=E/R we see that 120/10=12amps. figuring for power used by the formula W=VxA, 120x12=1,440watts. now let's redo this for the voltage the electric serviceman measured for me of 127.4vac. 127.4/10=12.74amps. for the power it is now 127.4x12.74=1,623watts for that same appliance. that is 183watts extra it is drawing and if done long term and on many lights and other appliances that are being run, big $ for them at your (mine) expense. what's worse is those appliances will have shorter lifespans as you noticed with your light blubs. say you have only 2 appliances affected for 8hrs each day or the total sum of all of the items in your home raised up artificially by this and this would be a conservative figure i assure you, but is fine as an example. that is 183x2x8=2,928watts. over a month(30days) this is now 87,840watts or roughly another 88kwhs at whatever rate they charge you for a kwh. even at 10 cents a kwh that's another $8.80 you pay them and multiply that by the number of households they are ripping off and they've struck gold.
pretty slick aren't they? years ago it was 110vac that was considered the standard voltage and they kept creeping it up taking advantage of a higher voltage to rip off their customers all the while raising the rates on the kwh you use so they get you coming and going so to speak. as you can see they have been doing this for many years and i'm sure in the years to come they will convince state authorities to raise the voltages they would be allowed to put upon their customers so as to "serve the customers better". it is a snow job and they could easily get it by stating that it would help deliver power to outer service areas easier with less stress on the grid as higher voltages overcome resistive losses better. nominal voltage went from 110v to 115v to 117v to 120v and it is probably going to 125v pretty soon if it isn't already. think about it, an appliance made in the fifties would have a very short lifespan today because of utility company greed and not because of the appliance being old. the voltage is up about 15v from back then and dividing by the resistance ups the current too. the 2 multiplied together shows a consumption that is up by leaps and bounds causing the appliance to dissipate that extra power in the form of heat. that's what usually destroys them is that extra heat it was never made to handle in addition to the heat it was meant to handle. make the comparrison for that 10ohm heating element as it would've looked in the fifties. 110/10=11amps. 11x110=1,210watts or 413watts less than what it would draw at my home with the 127.4vac. even well made appliances of yesteryear in new condition can't last long on the grid today with having to dissipate 25% more power than back then so you are getting stuck with not only high electric bills, but also the cost of premature appliance replacements.

now they've got me mad as my voltage went up by about 1v and not down. i think it's so wonderful that i have to pay these crooks or incompetent idiots (it's one of the 2) enough that they make far more than i was ever able to get. i'll fire off another email and if i don't get satisfaction i'll contact my puc and report it to them. if anything in my home goes bad i'm going to hold them responcible.

I'm going to wait till 30 May, which is 1 month after I reported the problem to submit a claim for light blubs and a new fridge if they do not get me down with in the 240 specs. Im currently at 250VAC and if I get my neighbors involve its not going to be a pretty sight for them.


Fred

Be sure you have a meter, traceable to some calibrated standard, or their admission in writing, the voltage has been high. What is 10% variance of 240V, that they are allowed to have on the line, and in the meter reading error. (Theirs reads low, yours reads high)

Oh, That 20 year old meter, from the surplus store. When was it calibrated? Go away kid, don't bother me.

GT-View's Data Logging should be fine as it's +/- 1% and it's CEC approved, meaning its been tested with UL witness to the units performance

When I showed my local electric company a days graph of VAC ( using excel ), their jaws dropped, they just assume no one is "watching".

Just one minor thing, GT-View only logs data when the Array is above 80 Vdc, so night-time performance of the Grid can't be done with GT-View

fred,
be sure that the 250vac is considered high as by the spec given to me for my area they said 252vac or less or for each leg 126vac or less.

mike,
are you refering to the meter as being +/-10% or the 240vac being allowed +/-10%? for me it doesn't matter as i have a dmm and a kill-a-watt and both of them read lower than what the service rep measured on his fluke and both of my meters say it went up. it certainly is not +/-10% of 240vac here in my area as that would put it at 264vac or 132vac per leg and that's dangerously high. i was blowing out heating elements in my dryer with less voltage than that years ago. i believe it was hovering around 129-130vac at the time.