ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades New supply -- Awkward location

Nothing yet. I called the PoCo for him to get the forms sent out, explained the situation and our proposals, and they're going to arrange a site visit.

It will probably be a couple of weeks before we all get out there to discuss it.

hey dont see any problem with your idea Paul, i have a farmer customer with a similar arrangment, the meter is over 200 yards away from his barn,,

He wants a new supply, 400amp 3phase, they want, wait for it...£37000.00.. cause they have to put some new poles in and extend the HV cables, to a small sub.

You used to be able to pay this off via your electric bill, can you still do this.. also when i lived up north MANWEB had to install a sub station on my old bosses land because he need an uprated supply, they did this very cheap because it improved there network, could you try that one Paul..

A whole sub-station just for one property?.
I guess, it must be a smaller sized one.

I can't see the PoCo installing anything resembling a full substation here. One side of the land and the rear is bounded by woodland which belongs to the local estate/manor house. That already has power which appears to come in from the far side.

The other side is open farmland, with just the one house at the bottom corner (with its single-phase spur line and small xfmr which we are hoping can be upgraded to give a supply).

The opposite side of the road is also woodland belonging to the estate, plus the large poultry farm which has the big 3-ph xfmr that I mentioned in my initial post. So it seems unlikely there will ever be more demand to justify a full sub.

We are still waiting for the PoCo to get back to us with a date for a site visit.

By the way, the initial house plans have fallen through. The local council planning department has now informed the owner that they are most unlikely to grant planning consent to build a house on the land, even though they had previously indicated that there would be no objections.

So, the plan at the moment is to replace the existing holiday-style caravan (about 28 ft. single unit) with a double-wide "park" type mobile home. The existing unit has already had temporary consent for several years, so he reckons there's no reason to refuse the upgrade. (He intends to go ahead with the plan whether the council like it or not anyway, as his personal position at the moment leaves little choice.)

So on the electrical side I now plan on running just a 40A subfeed from the bottom of the land, and have put a maximum anticipated load of 9kVA on the supply request. That should help keep costs down a little.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 02-20-2005).]

Paul,
What a big nuisance that is!
I'd take the original consent to the Courts.
I'd argue this one!!.
A Council cannot just change it's mind like that.
Considering that the guy already owns the land, what authority, does the council have to tell the guy what he can do with his own land?.
Yet Councils are really good at rating land at exorbitant rates.
You have to listen to them and yet they still take your hard-earned money.
My personal opinion is that we haven't moved on from the 1700's as far as the Land-lords and Kings go.
Just in another name.

{Message edited to clean things up a wee bit!}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 02-22-2005).]

Well, the problem is that there wasn't anything definite yet in the form of outline planning consent. It was purely at the initial inquiry stage of asking "in principle," which doesn't obligate the council to anything.

It really stinks though. There's absolutely no good reason why a bungalow on the land would cause a problem. But the local council here is notorious for this sort of nonsense.

(I've actually sent Trumpy some examples -- I don't want to post way off-topic here, but if anybody else is curious just e-mail me and I'll forward a copy.)

The PoCo engineer visited the site today for a look. I wasn't able to get out there to talk with him (it was short notice and I was tied up elsewhere), but he had all the details I filed anyway.

First, it seems they are under instructions that all new LV cabling must be run underground. (Which accounts for why the first option of going along the road was quoted at £20,000 I guess!) I'm not quite clear where these orders have originated, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the local council again.

Anyway, the existing pole xfmr would need to be upgraded as I reckoned, then the LV run down the pole on the neighbor's land and underground across the corner of the woodland. For some reason the PoCo will not provide an exact quote for the work until such time as they have signed letters from the two other land-owners that they have no objections to the work.

I was told that the engineer who came out was very friendly though, and though he couldn't officially provide an estimate he hinted that if all the trench work was done by the owner then the bill would probably be in the region of £5,000 to £10,000.

There's a problem though. Although the owner of the woodland would have no objections (after all, the guy works on his land) it seems that the owner of the other land and house where the existing xfmr is located is unlikely to give his consent.

Back to square one -- Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Hang on a minute, mate,
Sure all LV cabling has to be run under-ground, but what is there to prevent the Spur line being extended?.
Provided, that the Spur uses 11kV or a similar voltage, even if it is just extended until it is out of the jurisdiction of the neighbour that will not give the consent.
I hate to be suggesting a thing like this, but it sounds like there are very few alternatives.
Just like the situation we have here in NZ, there is an "easement" clause for HV lines and thier path across land, no matter who owns it.
At the end of the day Paul, the people that are going to live there are going to need a power supply of one form or another.
It seems that things have changed in the country these days, where neighbours helped each other out.
I work with Rural customers all the time here and they would extend thier lines without a thought and they would help setting the poles.

Here's a quick-&-rough (very! ) outline of what we have to deal with:



I forgot to mention the pond before. As you can see, it's right in the corner of the land where it would get in the way of a direct underground route, hence having to go through the trees to the rear.

I thought there might have been some sort of easement rule as well, but I'm no lawyer.

I'm not sure it would be that easy to just extend the HV lines overhead anyway. To bring them on a direct route onto his land would likely result in them being too close to the other guy's house. The only other way I can see would be to spur off back in the little lane and come round across the field. I can see that costing as much if not more than running from the large 3-ph xfmr behind the poultry farm (which is actually a little further away than this drawing makes it appear -- sorry, it's not to scale!).

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-09-2005).]

Paul,
I never actually realised that you posted that diagram.
It all seems perfectly clear what you are talking about now.
(Sorry I don't mean that it didn't before )
If I was the PoCo and the property owner, here is what I would look at possibly doing:

Extend the 3~ 11kV line from in front of the poultry farm, across the road, to avoid the trees in the adjacent woodland and extend the lines toward the property boundary.
From there, have a 1 or 3~ tranny on the last pole of the line and then run underground along the boundary fence.

What you could also do in the mean-time, while the guy is living in the motor-home, is set up a metering/consumer unit on a post (In an appropriately IP rated enclosure, of course) near to the motor-home, so that he has at least some reliable source of power.
It would mean that when a house is built on the property, the mains would simply just need to be joined to an extension of the underground cable and the metering and consumer unit relocated to the new installation.