Strange POCO Requirement

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Little Bill

Little Bill

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I'm going to be installing a 200A UG service for my daughter who lives in another town and a POCO that I have never dealt with. One of the requirements is one I never heard of. Along with the 3" for the service conductors, they want a 1" conduit run in the same trench, stubbed up with 90s on each end. The spec sheet calls it "for Smart Grid Applications".
What exactly is this and does anyone else have to do this?
 
Never heard of it but likely it will be for future fiber that could be used for a communications link to carry data to and from the meter as well as control "smart" appliances, etc. Kinda like their own network.

-Hal
 
Reminds me of when Verizon ran fiber in my neighborhood. They pulled a direct-bury underground fiber cable and an empty innerduct from pedestal to pedestal.
 
Govt spying via open tubes. Real thing.
Probably just provisioning on your dime.
 
Sounds like MTEMC, they added the 1" requirement a few years ago. I've always thought the 3" was too costly just to run 3 conductors the size of your thumb. They have what looks like unlimited manpower and trucks and equipment to pull those 3 conductors.
 
Little Bill said:
I'm going to be installing a 200A UG service for my daughter who lives in another town and a POCO that I have never dealt with. One of the requirements is one I never heard of. Along with the 3" for the service conductors, they want a 1" conduit run in the same trench, stubbed up with 90s on each end. The spec sheet calls it "for Smart Grid Applications".
What exactly is this and does anyone else have to do this?
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865resi said:
Sounds like MTEMC, they added the 1" requirement a few years ago. I've always thought the 3" was too costly just to run 3 conductors the size of your thumb. They have what looks like unlimited manpower and trucks and equipment to pull those 3 conductors.
Click to expand...
How widespread is the 3" requirement? Utilities in the EUSERC territory like PG&E, also require it seems like a waste of material to me.
 
I deal with 3, all require 3". Two of them transition to 2" once they start paying for the pipe on their pole. Only 1 requires a slip joint.
 
LarryFine said:
Reminds me of when Verizon ran fiber in my neighborhood. They pulled a direct-bury underground fiber cable and an empty innerduct from pedestal to pedestal.
Click to expand...
Yeah I was shocked when an ISP in eastern Washington decided to pull fiber to everyone's homes through the underground service pipes and out through the side of the meters. Seemed like a code violation but was surprised to see that I was wrong.

Rob G
 
Dennis Alwon said:
We deal with 3 power company's but we have rarely had to install any conduit. They run from pole ug to the meter.
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One of our POCOs only requires us run down from the meterbase with a piece of 3" PVC, then a 3" sweep. They then run their own flex conduit from the sweep to their pole, then they run rigid PVC up the pole.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
We deal with 3 power company's but we have rarely had to install any conduit. They run from pole ug to the meter.
Click to expand...
I often need to bury conduit, but POCO will pull whatever conductor they want in it. I have to provide enough conduit to run to top of pole but POCO will install it on the pole when they come to pull conductors.
 
Little Bill said:
One of our POCOs only requires us run down from the meterbase with a piece of 3" PVC, then a 3" sweep. They then run their own flex conduit from the sweep to their pole, then they run rigid PVC up the pole.
Click to expand...
So does your meter pan come with 3" ko's. My recollection was the 200 amp bases were only 2.5" or at least they used to be
 
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