Multiple tiny homes on one service

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markac

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North Carolina
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Electrical Engineer
Working on a homeless village development with multiple tiny homes. Intended power distribution is one large metered service panel with main breaker, individual feeder breakers in the panel to each home, and emergency disconnect on each home. We have received preliminary feedback that each home may require a dedicated utility service. The utility company prefers providing one large service. The village will be managed by one entity that prefers one utility bill.
Does anyone know of NEC language that would require a dedicated service to each home?
The language in 230.2 notes that each build shall be supplied by only one "service", but could that be interpreted absolutely as a utility service? We have done a lot of industrial facility work where a campus of buildings is supplied from one utility service and never run into that interpretation.
 
I don't know of any Code requirement that would require a separate service to each home.

Nor would I see a need for an "emergency disconnect" on each home. If each home's panel had an MCB, and the panel was located such that the MCB was at a readily accessible location nearest the point of entrance of the feeder conductors, that would satisfy 225.32.
 
david luchini said:
I don't know of any Code requirement that would require a separate service to each home.

Nor would I see a need for an "emergency disconnect" on each home. If each home's panel had an MCB, and the panel was located such that the MCB was at a readily accessible location nearest the point of entrance of the feeder conductors, that would satisfy 225.32.
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Thanks for the input.
After a bit of digging, there isn't an issue with the NEC, but the North Carolina General Statutes prohibit "master metering" of residential buildings. Each residence is required to be separately metered by the utility company. It references "conservation of energy" by each occupant.
NCGS 142-151.42
 
There is an interesting caveat to this requirement.
This section shall apply to any dwelling unit normally rented or leased for a minimum period of one month or longer, including apartments, condominiums and townhouses, but shall not apply to hotels, motels, dormitories, rooming houses or nursing homes, or homes for the elderly.
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Are these tiny houses being rented or leased to the tenant?

It might be necessary to get a lawyer into the mix.
 
markac said:
Thanks for the input.
After a bit of digging, there isn't an issue with the NEC, but the North Carolina General Statutes prohibit "master metering" of residential buildings. Each residence is required to be separately metered by the utility company. It references "conservation of energy" by each occupant.
NCGS 142-151.42
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Yeah, they probably figure if somebody else is paying the electric bill, the tenants would not care how much power they were using. If the area was under deregulation, then you might get away with submetering, and the landlord acts as a utility.
 
My wife and I built our tiny home as if it was an RV, with a 30 amp 120vac cord feeding a small breaker box that had a few circuits. Would setting all these tiny homes up the same way and building each space it were an RV space, be a viable workaround?
 
micabay said:
My wife and I built our tiny home as if it was an RV, with a 30 amp 120vac cord feeding a small breaker box that had a few circuits. Would setting all these tiny homes up the same way and building each space it were an RV space, be a viable workaround?
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IMHO only if each tiny home had wheels. (Quite a few tiny homes are built to be moveable from one location to another, but I am not sure whether this project would be set up that way.)
 
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