I have a B017BDQHE6 (instruction sheet 200505) Power energy meter mounted in an RV.  I am only measuring the energy used by the small refrigerator.  It is a compressor refrigerator that runs on 12 Volts.

Typically it uses around 5 amps when the compressor is running, or zero if idle.  That makes sense.

Unfortunately the KW/h reading is significantly more than one would expect.  I have a months worth of readings that seem to be significantly off.  I am seeing readings that are much more than if the refrigerator was running all the time.   I ran a simple test for a little more than one day.  The actual readings were 4.24A, 12.98V 55.0W and 3.336kwh.  Assuming the fridge was running continuously, one would expect the kwh to be 4.24A x 12.98V x 25 hours or 1.431 kwh.  My reading is 3.336 kwh.  That’s more than 2x what the reading should be.

Do I have a defective unit?  Is there potential that the unit can’t handle the inrush current of the refrigerator compressor?  (It is on a 10A fused circuit, so that is well within the 20A limit of the DROK meter.) What do you suggest that we should do?  Thanks for your help!

Greg Weller gweller55@gmail.com