Neutral conductor used for short circuit?

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Isaiah

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Baton Rouge
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Electrical Inspector
Whats the advantage of running a neutral from a 480V switchgear to MCC, where there are NO line to neutral loads being fed from the MCC? The incoming MCB has a SPD so the only only thing I can see is using the neutral for short circuit/grd fault occurrence
But there’s also an EGC ran from the Switchgear for that.
 
Whats the advantage of running a neutral from a 480V switchgear to MCC, where there are NO line to neutral loads being fed from the MCC? The incoming MCB has a SPD so the only only thing I can see is using the neutral for short circuit/grd fault occurrence
But there’s also an EGC ran from the Switchgear for that.
I don’t see an advantage unless any of the gear would need a neutral and you already have a N/G bond at service equipment.
 
I don't think there is one. In most cases there's not a neutral bus in the MCC to run it to anyway.

Exactly my thoughts. This MCC does in fact have a neutral bus but I really don’t see the advantage unless it’s for possible future use.


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Exactly my thoughts. This MCC does in fact have a neutral bus but I really don’t see the advantage unless it’s for possible future use.


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I wonder why they put a neutral bus in it if they're not going to use it. If there's a neutral bus there I'd be implying to run a wire to it, just in case you need it down the road.
 
I wonder why they put a neutral bus in it if they're not going to use it. If there's a neutral bus there I'd be implying to run a wire to it, just in case you need it down the road.
Why do they put a neutral bus in panelboards? In case you need to use it. The chance of needing to use it is greater in a panelboard than a MCC though.

I have a plant I work at sometimes that has several I-Line panels scattered about, all of them supplying only 480 volt loads, no neutral run to any of them. They of course do have EGC run to them. Good or bad the lighting is only loads in plant that may be practical to connect to 277 volts. But all the lighting was originally 120 volts before they even brought 480 into the plant, maybe at least 45 years ago, and it has remained that way since.
 
I wonder why they put a neutral bus in it if they're not going to use it. If there's a neutral bus there I'd be implying to run a wire to it, just in case you need it down the road.

More than likely a good salesman convinced the owner they needed a neutral bus. I’m sure there’s an uplift in price tag.


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More than likely a good salesman convinced the owner they needed a neutral bus. I’m sure there’s an uplift in price tag.


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More often when I have seen Neutral busses in MCCs it’s because an inexperienced EE insisted on it “because it’s a 4 wire service”. I can’t count the number of times I have seen N-bus speced on an MCC for no good reason. Most of the time I can talk the EE out of it because it often makes the MCC special order, not because it’s difficult to add the bus, but it becomes problematic to add the terminations. The N will not have vertical bus bars in each section, so creating a way for a feeder breaker to be able to have a N-bus connection with proper wire bending space means it needs engineering input, which pushes the project into longer lead times.

If your MCC is existing and already has it though, I would probably run the N conductor to it. I wouldn’t want to explain to the future guy wanting to install a feeder for a 4 wire circuit why he can’t do it.
 
More often when I have seen Neutral busses in MCCs it’s because an inexperienced EE insisted on it “because it’s a 4 wire service”. I can’t count the number of times I have seen N-bus speced on an MCC for no good reason. Most of the time I can talk the EE out of it because it often makes the MCC special order, not because it’s difficult to add the bus, but it becomes problematic to add the terminations. The N will not have vertical bus bars in each section, so creating a way for a feeder breaker to be able to have a N-bus connection with proper wire bending space means it needs engineering input, which pushes the project into longer lead times.

If your MCC is existing and already has it though, I would probably run the N conductor to it. I wouldn’t want to explain to the future guy wanting to install a feeder for a 4 wire circuit why he can’t do it.

Good advice. Thanks for feedback.


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