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Demand calculations in a residence

Merry Christmas
Location
Miami Fl.
Occupation
Electrical Designer
Im worKing in the installation of a 65 kw emergency generator, the existing plans dont match existing field conditions, I asked the Power Co the give me highest kilowatt/hour demand in a month and they tell me is 9,039 kiloiwatts /hours . i wsnt to convert to kvas. Which calculation I can use. The way I did is divde that figure into 720n hours AND a pf OF .8, I came out with 82 amps adding 1.25 for safety?
 

d0nut

Senior Member
Location
Omaha, NE
The demand load cannot be determined given the information provided. Your calculation assumes the load was constant over the entire month. It is extremely unlikely that is the case.

Let's say I drove 500 miles in 10 hours, including a stop for lunch. What was the fastest speed I drove during that trip?
 
Location
Miami Fl.
Occupation
Electrical Designer
The demand load cannot be determined given the information provided. Your calculation assumes the load was constant over the entire month. It is extremely unlikely that is the case.

Let's say I drove 500 miles in 10 hours, including a stop for lunch. What was the fastest speed I drove during that trip?
Okay, I understand what are you saying but there has to be a way to know at least the average, if Im getting the highest kw/h from the Power company, I know and you know that the connected load is not the demanb load is much less , the drawings show 68Kw connected and the generator on site is a 65KW, I know that generator is not going to see that load at any time. So what do you suggest to do to present to the elctrical reviever.?
 
Location
Miami Fl.
Occupation
Electrical Designer
Okay, I understand what are you saying but there has to be a way to know at least the average, if Im getting the highest kw/h from the Power company, I know and you know that the connected load is not the demanb load is much less , the drawings show 68Kw connected and the generator on site is a 65KW, I know that generator is not going to see that load at any time. So what do you suggest to do to present to the elctrical reviever.?
I know that they trust a letter from the Power Co.
 

jcbabb

Member
Location
Norman, OK, USA
You need to request the 'peak demand in kW' from the utility, but not every meter tracks this. Anything else will be invalid and unhelpful. There is no conversion or math that can get you anything useful from a kWH value.
 

suemarkp

Senior Member
Location
Kent, WA
Occupation
Retired Engineer
Peak demand is usually measured over a 15 minute interval. You need that highest 15 minute interval over the last year. Then you may need to do some math depending on whether they give you KW or KW-HR in a 15 minute window.You'd need to divide kw-hr by 4 if that kw-hr was consumed during a 15 minute window.
 
Location
Miami Fl.
Occupation
Electrical Designer
I gotta ask - what kind of residence will realistically have a demand over 65 KW?
The problem is that with all applied demand to the panels and shunt trip on the A/c breakers to start after the gen is on. The connected load is still over the 65KW, The engineer that did the job originally, had taken one of the elect panels out and was perfect, but now all they have is a 400 A transfer switch main. Now we are talking cost to redo the work as existing plans. For some reasons beyond my imagination, they got a permit.
 

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
The problem is that with all applied demand to the panels and shunt trip on the A/c breakers to start after the gen is on. The connected load is still over the 65KW, The engineer that did the job originally, had taken one of the elect panels out and was perfect, but now all they have is a 400 A transfer switch main. Now we are talking cost to redo the work as existing plans. For some reasons beyond my imagination, they got a permit.

Total connect load is not the same thing as demand.
 

energywork

Member
Location
California
Occupation
Technical Consultant
sounds like your poco doesnt record interval or power data, just a monthly read of total energy.
realistically, the fastest way to determine this is probably to throw amp meters on main feeders (measure each phase separately, at the same time), and ask the customer to turn on EVERYTHING at once (except for loads that would never run simultaneously, like heat and cooling). Its possible but unlikely (if they only take monthly readings) that your utility meter displays instantaneous kw draw. Metering both phases will also give you a good sense of whether your panel is balanced within the generators specified tolerance (probably not a big issue, 65kw should comfortably cover most typical single-fam homes). You'll have a real, measured value in about 10 minutes.

You could also do this by summing nameplate ratings or measured draw of all equipment (this is worst-case-scenario; could apply derating factors a la NEC220 to get a number more realistic to how customers actually use energy).

also, just an opinion, but at 65kw a single family can probably get by even if it doesn't cover 100% max-full-load in the house (how often do you turn on every electric load you own simultaneously?) by either giving some customer education ("don't heat your pool to 115 while running your cooling and all the shop tools in your garage at the same time on gen") or by installing a critical load panel (or some other way to either shed or interlock loads during outage - "sorry, you can't run your hottub, electric dryer, and welder at the same time on backup")
 

hmspe

Senior Member
Location
Temple, TX
Occupation
PE
If you are preparing drawings for plan review and you cannot get high KW from the utility you should follow the exception to NEC 220.87.
 

ron

Senior Member
Often the homeowner (or business) can log into their utility company website account and they will allow you to download 15 minute (sometimes 5 minute) demand data. With 15 minute demand data, if might already be converted to kW for you, but if the units are still kWh, you just multiply it by 4.
 

Birken Vogt

Senior Member
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
If it is a residence, how about just doing the standard or optional (whichever suits you better) service load calcs with the nameplates present in the house?

If you have nameplates already, may not even require a site visit?

Gathering nameplates will take less than an hour. Performing the calculation will take less than an hour. Any house I have worked on will come well under 65 kw.

There are other options, but this is usually the easiest.

My utility will not usually have demand data for any service under 80 kw.
 
Location
Miami Fl.
Occupation
Electrical Designer
If it is a residence, how about just doing the standard or optional (whichever suits you better) service load calcs with the nameplates present in the house?

If you have nameplates already, may not even require a site visit?

Gathering nameplates will take less than an hour. Performing the calculation will take less than an hour. Any house I have worked on will come well under 65 kw.

There are other options, but this is usually the easiest.

My utility will not usually have demand data for any service under 80 kw.
Thanks for your post but where I lived they only accept lleter from the Power Co. Of course you can also use a meter for one month having yhe fifteem minuted reasdings as per NEC 220-87
 

Birken Vogt

Senior Member
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
Thanks for your post but where I lived they only accept lleter from the Power Co. Of course you can also use a meter for one month having yhe fifteem minuted reasdings as per NEC 220-87
What do you mean they only accept a letter from the poco?

If it was a new build it would have to be calculated by the procedure, how is this any different? How could you ever size a new house service because there is no poco to write a letter?
 
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