Street Lighting

[Cavie]

I was doing some repair on a city street lighting system yesterday. The I was told the system was 480volt 2wire. Meaning 480v hot to neutral. When I opened it up, I found Black, Yellow, Green. That tells me no neutral or a stupid electrican. I checked the prints and the specs by the engenieer and he called for the yellow neutral. The same specs state all Florida Standards and the NEC must be followed. How is it that engineers are allowed to violate the NEC and install yellow neutral. (I woun't go into what I think about collage educated no field training engineers). These jobs never get inspected by state or local electric inspectors. The inspectors are Quaility Control inspectors employed by the Project Management Engineering Team and they are there to see to it that the specs are followed. They have no training in the NEC. They only read the prints and make sure you followed the specs. This happens on Federal Highway DOT projects as well. The only thing inspected by an electric inspector is the Service as required by the local POCO.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Perhaps the city has some specific regulations for their properties??? I can't resist-- college not collage....

 

[masterinbama]

Our street lighting here is done much the same way. They use a URD cable that has 1 black, 1 black with a yellow stripe, and 1 black with a green stripe. They use this cable for all voltages. They mark the poles with 3" high numbers. 12 for 120 volts, 24 for 240 volts and 48 for 480 volts.

 

[iwire]

I was doing some repair on a city street lighting system yesterday. The I was told the system was 480volt 2wire. Meaning 480v hot to neutral.

Why do you assume that one line is a neutral?

I do not think it is, I have never seen or heard of a voltage system with 480 to 'neutral'.

 

[Cavie]

Why do you assume that one line is a neutral?

I do not think it is, I have never seen or heard of a voltage system with 480 to 'neutral'.

Seems I've got one up on you Iwire, but only by about 8 months. I never heard of it either in my 40+ years as an electrican. We all learn somthing new every day. 480 to ground (neutral) is very common in street lighting. Never knew it cause I never worked on street lighting before. I ask this question from a saftey standpoint and this backs up never to ASSUME anything about electricty. We build SQ D nighmaster services for thses systems and have to waist 2 pole breakers all the time. Use only one leg cause they don't make 600 volt single poles.

 

[Cavie]

Our street lighting here is done much the same way. They use a URD cable that has 1 black, 1 black with a yellow stripe, and 1 black with a green stripe. They use this cable for all voltages. They mark the poles with 3" high numbers. 12 for 120 volts, 24 for 240 volts and 48 for 480 volts.

Sound like your street lighting might be done by the POCO. I have seen this done. We have a project in Cocoa Beach where we are installing the pipe and pull boxes supplyed by the POCO while doing the road wideing and when we are done, they will install the wire and install the ploes and lights.

 

[Cavie]

Perhaps the city has some specific regulations for their properties??? I can't resist-- college not collage....

My guess is "collage boy" didn't know about 480 to ground systems. I didn't untill I started working on roadbuilding.

 

[masterinbama]

Sound like your street lighting might be done by the POCO. I have seen this done. We have a project in Cocoa Beach where we are installing the pipe and pull boxes supplyed by the POCO while doing the road wideing and when we are done, they will install the wire and install the ploes and lights.

That's correct. Any system that is to be maintained by our local POCO is installed to their specifications. From federal funded projects all the way down to the smallest side streets. The POCO wants all street lighting wired uniformly so their linemen are familiar with them.

 

[iwire]

Seems I've got one up on you Iwire, but only by about 8 months. I never heard of it either in my 40+ years as an electrician. We all learn something new every day. 480 to ground (neutral) is very common in street lighting.

That does not mean you have a neutral, likely you have a grounded conductor and an ungrounded conductor but no 'neutral'.

Not that it matters much as the requirements for marking a grounded conductor are the same regardless of voltage.

Of course the NEC may not apply at all to these lights.

 

[Cavie]

That does not mean you have a neutral, likely you have a grounded conductor and an ungrounded conductor but no 'neutral'.

Not that it matters much as the requirements for marking a grounded conductor are the same regardless of voltage.

Of course the NEC may not apply at all to these lights.

Street lighting 480 volt system Florida Power and Light (POCO). Hot (black), neutral (in this case yellow) and ground (Green). The yellow was not a POCO requirement, theirs is white, the yellow came from the project engineer. These systems also require 1-20' copper ground rod at each pole. 1-50' at the Services.