I have a client who's service upgrade to 400 amperes has been rejected by the POCO. They no longer allow the service lateral to come up inside the home and the want the service raceway visible all the way from the ground to the meter can. Power theft issues seem to be driving their position. I'm going to pitch a concrete encased service raceway to a semi flush meter can but I expect they'll reject that.
I now have to run feeder conductors from there new meter location to the lighting and appliance panel boards. Since the cost effective way to do this is by installing main breaker enclosures and converting the panels to main lug only it will call for one feeder to each panel. I believe this would call for the feeders to be sized in accordance with table 310.16 instead of Table 310.15(B)(6). That will mean 2" EMT and 250 MCM AL.
I know the local AHJ staff will accept 4/0 Type SE Style R cable and I'm tempted to use it since I must eat the additional labor but one of the panels supplies only pool and spa loads. The owners anticipate a hot tub and other heavy continuous duty loads on that panel which will eventually approach 160 amperes.
I suppose I could relocate the second panel to the new location and use 4 conductor 4/0 SER to the actual residential panel because right now the only load on that panel is the 100 ampere feeder to the existing pool equipment.
We've discussed this before and we have differing opinions on whether table 310.15(B)(6) can be applied to two or more feeders to a single dwelling.
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Tom Horne
