The original question:

• Normal billing meter that includes kVA.
• Main incoming meter that measures import and export, as well as kVA.
• Solar meter that measures import, export as well as kVA.

The original answer:
Typically a MD meter (kVA) only uses Forward Active energy (P1) and lagging forward reactive energy (Q1), which is 2 channels.

If you want to do 4 quadrant metering including export, that would be 4 channels, but it brings back 6 values, P1, P2 (Reverse Active energy), Q1-4 (all 4 quadrant reactive energies).

Not sure where exactly you put the Solar meter. Don't solar panels only export power? Can they consume power also?

Please note, you can block any of the channels you don't want to pay for in Advanced Meter Settings, then we'll ignore those values and put the rest in the DB.

Yes, for P1 Q1 and Q4 (Forward Leading reactive), it is 3 channels. You can block Q4 on Advanced Meter Settings if you want to block it. Eskom MD (kVA) usually excludes Q4, so it might be safe to do so, depending on your situation.

Simple is P1

Demand is Q1

LeadingPF is Q4

RealTime is an extra channel. That is if you want to see real time values on your meter, e.g. you leave a screen open that brings back the Energy Total or phasor values every few seconds (to a minute). Do you use RealTime functionality? You might want to disable that if you just want to do energy billing. We use that e.g. when we bring back real time values for factories etc. and send it to real time Dashboards or to their SCADA system via SNMP. Few of our customers actually use our Real Time features.

'Meter Channels to Ignore' can help you to disable Q4 or export on meters if you don't want to read it.

Profile, Totals, Events and Phasors doesn't really affect the billing, except that we only bill channels 1-4 if the appropriate Meter Channels is actually inserted into the Meter Profile. Usually when you insert only totals, it would also insert Profile since it tries to keep Profile and Totals to be consistent with each other if possible, but Events and Phasors do not affect billing at all.