ATS

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djn602

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Installing a generator in a small town for the first time and the POCO/AHJ wants me to put another disconnect before the Generac 200 amp SE Rated ATS. They claim it is to protect the linemen. I am blown away. The ATS completely prevents any potential for back feeding. Heck it physically cannot back feed. I am not sure how to even reason with them. The head linemen is coming by as he finally admitted he didn’t even know was an ATS is.

Any reason another disconnect is needed?
 
Show him a picture.

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Just making sure I didn’t magically miss something. The other argument was well we require this with solar too. Yeah, no kidding. By law you have to allow back feeding...

Thank you both.
 
jumper said:
And some clueless POCO guy wants even another one before that one!

Good grief.
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Yes, and the homeowner is pissed at the extra unplanned cost. It has to be a disconnect and not a breaker and a 3R 200 amp isn't exactly free. Their reasoning is that if they are working in the neighborhood during an outage they need to be able to visually see it is off and be able to lock it. Why? The ATS physically cannot allow back feeding.

From an Email: "I have attached a photo of an the Lockable disconnect switch for this generator setup which also has a ATS. The switch must be external so the electrician can visible see it turned off or on and must be lockable by the city electric department. This is not a new requirement. This type of disconnect switch must be installed prior to electric being restored to the home."

Here is what I sent: "What you sent me is a picture of a manual transfer switch and not a service disconnect. You can zoom in on the picture and see it is labeled ON LINE or ON AUX. The only difference is that you can indeed walk by and see if that house is being fed by the utility or the generator. The Ronk pictured is not service entrance rated. I hope they have a main breaker or fused disconnect at the house.

The picture you sent: http://www.steadypower.com/products.php?product=Ronk-7205A-Transfer-Switch-(1Ph,-200A)
One that is service rated and has a service disconnect (upper second handle): http://www.steadypower.com/products.php?product=Ronk-7225-Transfer-Switch-(1Ph,-200A) "
 
Can you possibly discuss with poco engineer and get a letter of approval from them ?

What state are you in? I haven’t encountered this exact scenario, but similar situations in which I had to go to the state building authority to override the local AHJ. But here the state is the ultimate AHJ.


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brantmacga said:
Can you possibly discuss with poco engineer and get a letter of approval from them ?

What state are you in? I haven’t encountered this exact scenario, but similar situations in which I had to go to the state building authority to override the local AHJ. But here the state is the ultimate AHJ.


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I am in MO, no state code. This is a town of 4200 with a new regime is seems. The public works Director is saying this is needed and also said the engineer agrees. They don’t have a full time engineer and use a firm in the next town over. That PE is not worth his salt if this is what he came up with. Lastly, a senior center was just finished. It has a generator and has absolutely no external disconnect. They of course have an ATS. So using his requirements they fail.
 
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What a mess.... so it sounds like you’re also dealing with a municipal utility.

I don’t have any other ideas other than to ask the homeowner to get involved and demand them to cite him where in the code this applies. Possibly take it before the local city council.


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The utility I worked for required a visible, lockable disconnect on both solar and generators, even if it has an ATS. Note the "visible" word, which means the blades themselves must be visibly open, which required opening the disconnect cover, which exposed the person to possible arc flash, etc.....but at one of our safety meetings, I asked if any of the linemen had ever locked off or even looked at a visible disconnect. Nope...not one. They said they identify, isolate, test and ground before working on lines anyway. As far as I know, the rule still exists. Old habits are hard to break.
 
meternerd said:
The utility I worked for required a visible, lockable disconnect on both solar and generators, even if it has an ATS. Note the "visible" word, which means the blades themselves must be visibly open, which required opening the disconnect cover, which exposed the person to possible arc flash, etc.....but at one of our safety meetings, I asked if any of the linemen had ever locked off or even looked at a visible disconnect. Nope...not one. They said they identify, isolate, test and ground before working on lines anyway. As far as I know, the rule still exists. Old habits are hard to break.
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This is the EXACT thing he is citing. Thanks for sharing. I do not see the point when a listed ATS installed.
 
brantmacga said:
What a mess.... so it sounds like you’re also dealing with a municipal utility.

I don’t have any other ideas other than to ask the homeowner to get involved and demand them to cite him where in the code this applies. Possibly take it before the local city council.


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It might come to that. Have a meeting in the morning.
 
He dug in and in the end the homeowner wants their $4500 generator in. I found a GE 3R for like $250 shipped. I will help the homeowner on the cost with leftovers from other jobs. Still do not understand what the rule accomplishes in the end but time to move on.
 
Moving on sounds like the least headache. But, I will give one quick comment (of course...) I was on an outage due to storm damage. Customers were complaining of DIM lights, not a power outage. When we got to the area, sure enough, porch lights and house lights were very dim but still on. We opened the cutouts to isolate the area and the lights stayed on dim...MAGIC?...Nope...one homeowner had installed a pretty good sized generator on his house and just back-fed a 50A receptacle that was in his garage. No transfer switch at all. Needless to say, when the line crew isolated and grounded the line, his generator breaker tripped. When they had the wire back up and the grounds off, the guy must have restarted his generator, because when they re-energized the line, it blew up his generator. He wanted US to pay for it! There's no fix for stupid.....if there had been a disconnect or ATS....well, you get the idea! Linemen consider the utility the ten thousand pound gorilla....they could really care less about a generator.
 
meternerd said:
The utility I worked for required a visible, lockable disconnect on both solar and generators, even if it has an ATS. Note the "visible" word, which means the blades themselves must be visibly open, which required opening the disconnect cover, which exposed the person to possible arc flash, etc.....but at one of our safety meetings, I asked if any of the linemen had ever locked off or even looked at a visible disconnect. Nope...not one. They said they identify, isolate, test and ground before working on lines anyway. As far as I know, the rule still exists. Old habits are hard to break.
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Thank you for pointing out the absurdity of this requirement. I have long had the same conclusion on this unwarranted practice of requiring such as switch. It is nothing but feel good nonsense on the part of a POCO or AHJ that has such rules.
If I were the owner I would require some proof that either the POCO has this in their tariff or the AHJ has this codified in writing before I rolled over for this nonsense. They need an education to understand that neither NEC or the NRTL listing standards require such a thing.
 
mkgrady said:
Does the POCO have any say in what is connected on the downstream side of the meter?
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No....once it is metered, we have no real interest or jurisdiction. We do check the service grounding/bonding but only as a favor to the Town building inspectors, who are kinda light on the Code issues regarding services. Of course, that doesn't apply regarding solar or standby generators.
 
texie said:
Thank you for pointing out the absurdity of this requirement. I have long had the same conclusion on this unwarranted practice of requiring such as switch. It is nothing but feel good nonsense on the part of a POCO or AHJ that has such rules.
If I were the owner I would require some proof that either the POCO has this in their tariff or the AHJ has this codified in writing before I rolled over for this nonsense. They need an education to understand that neither NEC or the NRTL listing standards require such a thing.
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It is, at least in most of the utilities I dealt with, in writing and in their construction standards. Other AHJ's may be different. EUSERC also has a Solar section in their requirements. I honestly don't foresee it going away any time soon...probably just best to deal with it.
 
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