240 volts 3 Phase rated equipments serving 3 phase 4 wire system (120/208 systems)

Designer101

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Solar and ESS Designer
Confused which is correct.
the equipment metering section says 120/208 Volts has utiliy pull section also 3 phase 4 wire
but the diconnect picture says rated for 3 pole 3 wire 240v Ac

does this means 240 volt 3 pole rated equipmetn used for 3 phase 4 wire systems?
Attached photos.
 

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ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Confused which is correct.
the equipment metering section says 120/208 Volts has utiliy pull section also 3 phase 4 wire
but the diconnect picture says rated for 3 pole 3 wire 240v Ac

does this means 240 volt 3 pole rated equipmetn used for 3 phase 4 wire systems?
Attached photos.
Switches are rated for 240V or 600V. 208/120V services use 240V rated switches and 480/277V services use 600V rated switches..
 

Designer101

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Solar and ESS Designer
Or it may still be a high leg delta.

In a situation like this, if no one measured the voltage on site, then someone needs to go back and measure the voltage on site. Trusting labels is foolish.
I dont see any orange color tagged wires any where and most confusing part is metetr label says 120/208 . and i saw the neutral in the utiltty section and thought its a wye system. this is submitted to utiltity for review hopefully they flag something. we also need to verify the voltage levels.
Or it may still be a high leg delta.

In a situation like this, if no one measured the voltage on site, then someone needs to go back and measure the voltage on site. Trusting labels is foolish.
 

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
I dont see any orange color tagged wires any where and most confusing part is metetr label says 120/208 . and i saw the neutral in the utiltty section and thought its a wye system. this is submitted to utiltity for review hopefully they flag something. we also need to verify the voltage levels.

Well, I don't see any color markings at all. Also I have seen at least one high-leg delta that was color marked as if it were 208 wye.

If I'm forced to guess, I would guess it's 208 wye. But what I'm saying is that while I would wager the cost of a sandwich that it's 208 wye, I would never make the call to wager the cost of inverters.
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Well, I don't see any color markings at all. Also I have seen at least one high-leg delta that was color marked as if it were 208 wye.
So have I. It was on a service where the pole mounted transformer bank had been changed from 208/120V to 240 delta high leg but the tape marking on the customer end of the service conductors was not changed. Our site survey guys did not measure the voltage, so when it came time for me to design a PV system for the customer (an automotive body shop), the service conductors color code told me one thing and the pattern of breakers in the MDP told me something else. The customer did not have anyone who felt comfortable checking the voltage, so we had to send someone to the site to do it. It was in Pennsylvania and we were based in Texas.
If I'm forced to guess, I would guess it's 208 wye. But what I'm saying is that while I would wager the cost of a sandwich that it's 208 wye, I would never make the call to wager the cost of inverters.
Looking at the breaker pattern in the MDP in the site assessment photos, I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that it was a 240/120V delta service, but there was no way I was going to design the PV system based on a guess. Had I guessed incorrectly it could have been a very expensive mistake.

In another instance I had to design eleven PV systems for some schools that all had 480/277V services, or so I thought. All eleven of them had 600V service equipment, but one of them was supplied by a 208/120V transformer. Once again, the site assessors did not measure the voltage. I got burned by that one, but I caught the error before the installation started, so all I had to do was completely redesign the system.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS measure the voltage.
 

tortuga

Code Historian
Location
Oregon
Occupation
Electrical Design
Well, I don't see any color markings at all. Also I have seen at least one high-leg delta that was color marked as if it were 208 wye.
keep in mind 110.15 , 210.5, and 215.12 all have the wording "or other approved means."
I have seen a huge cargo facility out at an airport where the posted "or other approved means" was use Black/Red/Blue (BRB) for phases at all voltages, the system voltages were presumably marked with labels or tags.
I think they had 6 different systems, all the fused disconnects were factory marked 600V on them, with a large label that had the actual voltage, and in some cases frequency.
A EC had missed that and installed a new 480V feeder using the typical Brown orange Yellow, BOY at some point, so at first I thought the BRB feeder was wrong but it was actually the BOY one.
 
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