Customer is Concerned with Cost of Upgrade from POCO......

[kwired]

However this policy on the part of the POCO runs contrary to the fact that they literally prohibit the customer from buying his own transformer and state that they do not want it that way. A customer can buy a remanufactured trafo for less than half of what POCO wants. And forget about the lifetime maintenance story since the customer has absolutely no problem assuming that risk. He says he can save $15,000 on a top class oil filled copper wound trafo if he buys his own, plus he would own it. This does seem somewhat unfair, even unamerican. If you were a customer would you be happy??

does the POCO offer services at their distribution voltage level? That is probably the first major question. If they do what other requirements may go along with providing service at those voltage levels? Many cases you are looking at 12.47/7.2 kV. Not something you want someone working on without very good understanding of how to install/operate/maintain such a system. Under 600 volts is bad enough to have people that don't fully understand but they can get away with things you just can't at medium and high voltages.

If you do have well qualified people to operate and maintain this equipment they are not going to do it for $15 an hour either, but you very well might have some earning that wage that do work on low voltage equipment. Though I can talk a lot about medium and high voltage, I will not actually work on them because I have no experience, and don't need the liability either if I don't get some training so I understand how to work with them at a much higher level then what I do know. I would imagine most any POCO that has good concerns for protecting life and property would want to see some requirements be met before they would be willing to supply a customer with medium voltage service. How that works out legally I don't know, but I can see it lessening their liability also over just bringing in a 12,470/7200 line and saying "it's all yours from this point on".

 

[dionysius]

does the POCO offer services at their distribution voltage level? That is probably the first major question. If they do what other requirements may go along with providing service at those voltage levels? Many cases you are looking at 12.47/7.2 kV. Not something you want someone working on without very good understanding of how to install/operate/maintain such a system. Under 600 volts is bad enough to have people that don't fully understand but they can get away with things you just can't at medium and high voltages.

If you do have well qualified people to operate and maintain this equipment they are not going to do it for $15 an hour either, but you very well might have some earning that wage that do work on low voltage equipment. Though I can talk a lot about medium and high voltage, I will not actually work on them because I have no experience, and don't need the liability either if I don't get some training so I understand how to work with them at a much higher level then what I do know. I would imagine most any POCO that has good concerns for protecting life and property would want to see some requirements be met before they would be willing to supply a customer with medium voltage service. How that works out legally I don't know, but I can see it lessening their liability also over just bringing in a 12,470/7200 line and saying "it's all yours from this point on".

The customer would not work at the primary voltage. The point of service would be defined as the primary of the tranny instead of at the secondary of the tranny. I do not see the concerns you state here as applying.

 

[kwired]

The customer would not work at the primary voltage. The point of service would be defined as the primary of the tranny instead of at the secondary of the tranny. I do not see the concerns you state here as applying.

If point of service is on supply side of the transformer then POCO is not going to perform any maintenance on it, it is customer's equipment and customer will be responsible for that. They possibly could contract with POCO to do so, but that puts you right back at their mercy for pricing of this service and you likely still would have a better deal just letting them provide you with the secondary voltage as your service voltage and point of service somewhere on the secondary.

Does the customer know how to maintain a medium voltage transformer and associated components or how to make repairs should they be needed on the medium voltage components? Do they have a contractor that is able to do such things?

If you think the price they want to supply the new equipment is too high you can certainly try to talk them down or even give them more realistic load information that may convince them they can use a smaller unit, though IIRC you seemed to think you needed a transformer with same capacity as your service conductors/service overcurrent device regardless of the actual load supplied.

Is this a case of POCO thinks they can get by with one size unit but you/customer is demanding fully rated unit even though it may not be pushed all that much? It does cost them $$$ to supply a unit that they feel is oversized that doesn't provide them as good of a return on their investment in that equipment. If that is the case their cost is probably high to recover what they consider to be losses.

That said it does cost them $$$ if they have to replace one because it is overloaded and burned up, but most POCO seem to do a fairly good job of watching demand levels (even if they don't show demand data on the bill, they likely do look at that kind of data) and determining what portions of their system need upgrades to handle what is asked of it.

 

[dionysius]

Is this a case of POCO thinks they can get by with one size unit but you/customer is demanding fully rated unit even though it may not be pushed all that much? It does cost them $$$ to supply a unit that they feel is oversized that doesn't provide them as good of a return on their investment in that equipment. If that is the case their cost is probably high to recover what they consider to be losses.

I really do respect and thank you for your interest and caring.

The customer does have an EC that is totally competent and highly experienced so there are no worries with regard to operation and maintenance.

The customer's position as expressed to me directly is that he is being charged for 1200 amp service and will grow into that over 5 years. His initial load will of course be less but he wants a full 1200 amp capability ab initio so that he will not have to go back to POCO or suffer any downtime with them "upgrading" his tranny. It does not cost them anything to give him what he is paying them for up front. Once again I am just the messenger here but this is a very good customer of mine and I want him to feel not used. It is not my direct battle. I can assure you I have other battles to pick from if I need!!!!