600V MCC or Power Panel?

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FaradayFF

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Greetings fellas,

I have a design question - which would be preferable to use, a low voltage MCC or a Power panel? I'm looking at powering mostly HVAC loads, each load drawing approximately 45kVA. It seems both options will accomplish the intent, albeit Power panel has an advantage of a smaller footprint. The caveat here is that most loads connected to the source would be coincident, so from temperature perspective, it may make more sense to go with MCC, since it's got buckets for the breakers and is generally wider, providing more heat dissipation per unit area.

Thoughts?
EE
 
The power panel is designed to handle continuous loads, although 45KVA is quite a bit. the power panels will be readily available, whereas the MCC may have a longer lead time.
Others will chime in..
 
That's what I was thinking too...just the OCPDs for the feeders in the panel..although we'll have a redundant power supply for the loads, so will need a secondary main at the panel with interlocking capability and maybe metering as well. With these additional requirements in mind, I'm leaning towards a switchboard, such as Eaton Pow-R-Line I Switchboard..
Thanks,
EE
 
The only advantages to doing this with an MCC filled with Feeder Breakers is that in the MCC format, each breaker has its own bucket, so if you need to change a breaker you can more safely remove one bucket without having to power down the entire MCC, and the fact that you can add motor starters, VFDs or Soft Starters to the MCC someday in the future if necessary. Other than that, the panelboard would be significantly less expensive and smaller.
 
It also depends on how many feeders you need. You could probably get ten 70 amp feeders in a single section mlo mcc with 600 amp bus. That might not be a whole lot more costly than a panelboard and might be a simpler install in some cases.
 
Decades ago, it seems the MCC as a power panel concept was employed primarily by companies (like Allen-Bradley) that did not make true breaker distribution panels. It was kind of a poor man's drawout switchgear alternative.

About it's only real drawback is the rating of the available branch breakers and the physical size of the lineup.

In today's Arc Flash world, is any one still recommending manual insertion and removal of MCC buckets onto live bus?
 
jim dungar said:
In today's Arc Flash world, is any one still recommending manual insertion and removal of MCC buckets onto live bus?
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There are several MCC mfrs that have options allowing you to disconnect the stabs from the bus while the door is still closed, then test to make sure it is disconnected before opening the door. A-B SecureConnect and Eaton Flashguard are two that I am aware of for sure, I have heard that Square D is coming out with an option like that too called Closed Door Racking for MCCs too. No idea if Siemens is working on it yet.
 
Jraef said:
There are several MCC mfrs that have options allowing you to disconnect the stabs from the bus while the door is still closed, then test to make sure it is disconnected before opening the door. A-B SecureConnect and Eaton Flashguard are two that I am aware of for sure, I have heard that Square D is coming out with an option like that too called Closed Door Racking for MCCs too. No idea if Siemens is working on it yet.
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Optional often means non-standard and higher priced which needs to be considered versus a panelboard installation that may only be entered once every several years, and probably requires an outage just to install the conduit and conductors. And of course each installation is fairly unique, such that it is easy to find exceptions to any example.
 
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