Southern electric… what is this??

[Brindelz]

Viewed a house yesterday and there was a mess of wires and old electrical equipment under the consumer unit (the unit itself had RCD so newish I think). Does anyone know what’s in the picture attached? How difficult would it be to remove?

The white thing at the top is the electricity meter.

Looks like it’s reading the current or voltage in the cable.
could be a tool they’ve left behind by mistake as it looks like it’s sitting on its case.
do you have a smart meter in the house somewhere?

you should be able to remove it simply by pressing the red lever/handle on the left hand side of the square plastic bit surrounding the grey wire. It’s a spring loaded clamp basically.

Ahh that would make sense - thanks @tanstaafl !

Its a current clamp. In order to measure current normally you put a break in the wire to send the current through the monitoring device (current is measured in series). What the clamp (hoop) does is sense the magnetic field generated by the current flowing in the wire and converts that into current so you don't need to put a break in the wire.

Why it's there is more interesting. Maybe it is to verify that the meter is working correctly by independently measuring the current (and therefore the electricity consumed). It seems strange that it would have been left there. But as pp said it is easy to remove.