Increasing capacity of service, but not adding any new load

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Tainted

Tainted

Senior Member
Location
New York
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Engineer (PE)
I am doing a residential electrical infrastructure project in NYC. I told Con Edison that we are proposing on upgrading old equipment with new, but we are not adding any new loads to the building. All we are doing is increasing capacity of meter banks, service end box and switches. They asked me that I should make a new case and include all existing loads in the building.

Why should they need to know all the existing loads if all I’m doing is increasing the capacity of the old equipment and not adding any new loads? It makes no sense. I would have to go to every single apartment to gather all the existing loads which would be a nightmare.
 
Tainted said:
I am doing a residential electrical infrastructure project in NYC. I told Con Edison that we are proposing on upgrading old equipment with new, but we are not adding any new loads to the building. All we are doing is increasing capacity of meter banks, service end box and switches. They asked me that I should make a new case and include all existing loads in the building.

Why should they need to know all the existing loads if all I’m doing is increasing the capacity of the old equipment and not adding any new loads? It makes no sense. I would have to go to every single apartment to gather all the existing loads which would be a nightmare.
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Yeah I hear you, utilities can be annoying. I have had similar happen. It also makes no sense because they likely have their demand data, so what do they care about your calcs? They've got much more precise data already! 😡
 
electrofelon said:
Yeah I hear you, utilities can be annoying. I have had similar happen. It also makes no sense because they likely have their demand data, so what do they care about your calcs? They've got much more precise data already! 😡
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How did you approach the problem, did you have to get all the existing loads? This one is insane… like I would have to go to every single apartment and do over 60 load letters??? There’s gotta be an easier way…
 
Tainted said:
How did you approach the problem, did you have to get all the existing loads? This one is insane… like I would have to go to every single apartment and do over 60 load letters??? There’s gotta be an easier way…
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What's the capacity now, and what do you want to upgrade to? It's most likely standard protocol to ask for calcs, especially if the upgrade is substantial.

20+ years ago I mistakenly took part with a buddy in wiring some apartment "upgrades" (was very vague)

I showed up and they wanted to turn 15 apartments all electric with no permits for interior wiring.

I mentioned the service, and GC said they had somebody upgrading it already, from 200 amps to 2,000 amps 😳

They had city permit with only a one-line digram, and it passed inspection. POCO shows up and one of the linemen asked what in the h*ll they were adding inside that warranted 1,800 more amps.

That opened up a huge can of worms that nobody was ready for.

All that to say, they have their reasons for wanting it
 
James L said:
What's the capacity now, and what do you want to upgrade to? It's most likely standard protocol to ask for calcs, especially if the upgrade is substantial.

20+ years ago I mistakenly took part with a buddy in wiring some apartment "upgrades" (was very vague)

I showed up and they wanted to turn 15 apartments all electric with no permits for interior wiring.

I mentioned the service, and GC said they had somebody upgrading it already, from 200 amps to 2,000 amps 😳

They had city permit with only a one-line digram, and it passed inspection. POCO shows up and one of the linemen asked what in the h*ll they were adding inside that warranted 1,800 more amps.

That opened up a huge can of worms that nobody was ready for.

All that to say, they have their reasons for wanting it
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They have 2 sets of 500s coming into the building currently so I assume the capacity is 800A but current field conditions cannot utilize all of that capacity since the service switches are arranged in a way that would not let you install additional service switches. 95% of the apartments are 2-pole 60 amps.

I see maybe it is a protocol… but I wasn’t ready for this protocol and they never mention any of this in their bluebook.

In your scenario did they add any new loads or did they just upgrade 200A to 2000A?
 
Tainted said:
In your scenario did they add any new loads or did they just upgrade 200A to 2000A?
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It was an atrocious fail.

My buddy and I added circuits to make a bunch of apartments all electric - 10kw furnaces, ranges, water heaters in every unit - all without permits (it was side work when I had a w-2 job)

Then POCO wanted to see why they needed all that power, and it went bad for GC because the materials he bought weren't right for the install but they were cheap.

So he got in trouble for not having permits, job shut down, all the wiring had to be removed, and nobody got paid.

It was a very valuable first lesson
 
James L said:
It was an atrocious fail.

My buddy and I added circuits to make a bunch of apartments all electric - 10kw furnaces, ranges, water heaters in every unit - all without permits (it was side work when I had a w-2 job)

Then POCO wanted to see why they needed all that power, and it went bad for GC because the materials he bought weren't right for the install but they were cheap.

So he got in trouble for not having permits, job shut down, all the wiring had to be removed, and nobody got paid.

It was a very valuable first lesson
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oooof... but see the difference in my situation is that we are not adding any new loads. We are just increasing capacity so that in the future, people would be able to utilize the extra capacity... But I do not have a crystal ball and I do not know how much load will be added in the future... If the utility wants to play games like this, I will just send them a worst case scenario, I don't care anymore
 
Tainted said:
the difference in my situation is that we are not adding any new loads. We are just increasing capacity so that in the future, people would be able to utilize the extra capacity...
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Tainted said:
like I would have to go to every single apartment and do over 60 load letters??
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Aren't all the units typical?
Can't you just look at one unit and consider them all the same?

I've never done that for 60+ units, but I've done 15-20 like that.
 
James L said:
Aren't all the units typical?
Can't you just look at one unit and consider them all the same?

I've never done that for 60+ units, but I've done 15-20 like that.
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I have no choice but to do a typical, I will also add future loads in there such as central AC, dryers, and electric cooking even though I do not have a crystal ball, I will just do the worst case. What's the worst that can happen if I give them a worst case scenario? Probably nothing
 
Just tell them your wiring for future EV’s! LOL! I’m upgrading a 100 amp service on a small cabin to 400 amp. Owner doesn’t want the county to know he is building a large shop next to his house ( no zoning to prevent it, he just hates the government) so I have to convince the inspector why we are putting such a large service on a small house. He is eventually going with a small solar set up, so adding EV charging would be logical, even though he will never buy an EV. He is putting in large electric tankless water heaters though.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Just tell them your wiring for future EV’s! LOL! I’m upgrading a 100 amp service on a small cabin to 400 amp. Owner doesn’t want the county to know he is building a large shop next to his house ( no zoning to prevent it, he just hates the government) so I have to convince the inspector why we are putting such a large service on a small house. He is eventually going with a small solar set up, so adding EV charging would be logical, even though he will never buy an EV. He is putting in large electric tankless water heaters though.
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Haha, they will still want all existing loads, and this building does not have a garage lol
 
The EMC’s usually not to hard to work with, Georgia Power can be a pain sometimes. City of Atlanta is political. The worst city I’ve done work in, other than the country of Miami, is Charlotte NC, a lot of politics there too.
 
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