Festoon Outlets on Street light poles

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trafficmike

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Seattle, WA
Good day all.

First, a disclaimer: I am a civil engineer by training and have been primarily working on street light and traffic signal systems since I began in the field.

Now for the question: I am faced with a jurisdiction wanting to put outlets on the street light poles for various uses. The town is a small one and hasn't defined what equipment would be powered from the outlets but I imagine that the main purpose will be small Christmas style lights and potentially small LED lights to illuminate banners also attached on the poles. I looked at NEC 220.14 to determine the loading required for outlets but I am confused on which portion applies to my situation. Is it 220.14(H) Fixed Multi-outlet assemblies or is it 220.14(I)?

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Mike
 
If these lights are not metered and are caculated by the fixed load from the utility you could be opening the door for theft of services from the utility, we have almost all the street lights here are like this, and other loads are not allowed unless a meter is installed
 
Thanks for the information. Also, thank you for the lead to the device used via the photocell receptacle. I'll look into it. On this project, we have one photocell located on the luminaire closest to the service cabinet.

Regarding the theft issue: I agree that this can be a problem. On this project, the outlets are about 12 to 15' above the grade and it is on one of the town's major streets. Hopefully this shouldn't be too much of an issue here. Thanks again for everyone's help!
 
trafficmike said:
Thanks for the information. Also, thank you for the lead to the device used via the photocell receptacle. I'll look into it. On this project, we have one photocell located on the luminaire closest to the service cabinet.
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Putting receptacles on the load side of a photo cell without a contactor or relay, is a quick recipe for photo cell failures.


trafficmike said:
Regarding the theft issue: I agree that this can be a problem. On this project, the outlets are about 12 to 15' above the grade and it is on one of the town's major streets. Hopefully this shouldn't be too much of an issue here. Thanks again for everyone's help!
Click to expand...

The theft issue is not with other people using the receptacle, it is with the fact that if these lights are not metered by the utility instead being calculated by the actual load of each fixture, then adding more loads to a calculated billing type service is a no-no and can get you and the city in hot water.

You need to look for a service meter or ask the city if these lights are metered, if not the utility will have to be advised as to how to do this so they can get their money for usage of electricity
 
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Thank you Wayne for the clarification on the photocell outlets. I'll keep that in mind as well.

Also, thank you for the clarification on the previous comment. Now I understand that the concern was for the agency as well. For the outlets, in addition to separating them out on their own circuit, we will be running these into a metered service cabinet to prevent any thefts.

Mike
 
One other thing to consider is that not all light poles can be used to support other items.

We install many poles that have labels on them saying not to attach things to them other then the fixtures they were designed for.

Take it for what it is worth.
 
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