Dumb meter

 After an prolonged delay the electricity retailer visited my house and replaced the spinning meter with a new electronic "smart" meter.

No instructions were provided with the meter, so I went to the internet. The retailers web site showed a single pdf page for three different makes of meters with confusing terminology and it did not cover what I wanted to know. Next I searched for and found the manufacturers instructions which included some standard definitions.

I learned that IMPORT means imported to the grid so what all the consumers call exporting power is defined to be importing because the terminology all is from the utility point of view. All perfectly understandable except that the information provided by the retailer does not explain it.

On my meter - EDMI Altas Mark 7C - there are tiny arrows in the upper left of the display window. 

The big red arrow points to the tiny left arrow - The left arrow means power is being imported to the grid. So when this is showing my solar is making more power than I am using.

The big blue arrow arrow points to the tiny right arrow - The right arrow means power is being exported from the grid to my house. So when this is showing I am using more power than my solar is making.

When I was engineering I was often hunting down the technical data for products and then analysing it. A sure sign of a poor product was a lack of technical data.