Long outdoor runs

I work for a wind turbine company doing mid size turbine installs on farms or industrial properties. A big deal for many of these projects is dealing with the long runs between the turbines and the existing service.

Traditionally if I was doing work where I had to get power 1000-2000 feet from existing power, it would be time to talk to the power company and get a new service put in near the new load. But we have the unique requirement that since we're offsetting the customer's load, we must be tying into the customer's panel where we will be downstream from the utility meter.

I'm wondering if someone here has experience / advice at looking at installing step up and step down pad mount transformers for the runs? Any idea where the cost break-over would be?

In most cases the power level is around 50kW to 120kW. On our end of the equipment we can connect at either 240V or 480V. So far we've done a few where fortunately the customer had 480V and then the run is more reasonable. But now we are looking at several where the farm has 240V delta.. and 50+ kW going 1000+ feet gets beyond nuts for the wire.

I am currently working in an industrial establishment that has its' own HV step-down equipment. All I can say to you is: welcome to the twilight zone.

It's not a code or engineering issue as such. Just keep one thing in mind when it comes to your design: every fool with a tool belt will feel absolutely certain that they can work on everything downstream of the PoCo - or in your case, the windmill- disconnect. The smaller the wire, the more certain they are that they are able to work on it. Formal training not necessary.

I suppose it's human nature. Nice, fat 4/0 gets lots more respect than relatively puny #2 .... even if that #2 has more volts than local lightning bolts! Plus, when there's a couple thousand feet of run, that's just so much more space for them to get into things.

That doesn't give me more confidence! 2400 is not something I want to ever mess with.