As a relatively new contractor, I have been making moew visits to the local PoCo than I ever thought possible. It's just amazing how many issues / jobs involve having a chat with them.
I have also been fortunate in that I am largely serving the same folks I served before "the boss" retired. Yet, I've discovered another side to these customers.
They are all in fear of the PoCo.
Whether it be a service change or new construction, they all get nervous when I mention talking to the PoCo. Today, one landlord was furious I had called "the authorities." Heck, the service was pulled free fron the building, the mast was severed from the main disconnect - and I was supposed to fix it 'hot?" (All thanks to someone climbing the mast). This guy was terrified that his apartment building would be shut down.
How do your customers react to the PoCo? Do you conceal most dealings from them?
As an inspector, I have a very good relationship with the POCO in the twp that I work for. Great guys, only a cell phone call away.
As an EC (inactive now) I had 'good' to 'great' contacts with a few PSE&G wiring inspectors.
Here (NJ) EC's are allowed to do disconnect & reconnect resi services up to 200 amp single phase, overhead. Anything else requires a POCO shutdown, which can become $$$ if a 'guarantee' reconnect is required.
As to me calling, as AHJ.....quite a few individuals are not very happy that all it takes is a phone call to have unsafe services cut at the pole.
PoCo (FPL) has always been good to me, as a Computer room guy, an inspector and an owner/builder. The engineering people were good, line folks were very good and customer service seemed OK. (Good response time from a phone call)
My wife brought a community out of the ground, built 100 single family and a bunch of condos (streets, amenities etc). She doesn't have much to say bad about them. That's a lot of feeders transformers and laterals without a lot of problems.
They must be doing something right.
Most of my POCO's in Wisconsin and EDF { France power co.}
They treat me good and I don't have much quirks with them and with specal situation I talk to them first and useally work out good.
However with customer some get spooky when heard word POCO most don't understand our side much at all. useally not a issue in most case due I expain in nice way to understand me what is going on with service drop/ UG runs.
Merci, Marc
Don't ask... Wienstrom policy is: if anything is touched (officially) bring it up to code - even if that means tearing up a whole apartment building basement to attic just because they feel according to their criteria (unknown to anyone else in the universe) the feeder size is insufficient. Their newest stroke of genius: special locks for everything, including residential panels, magnetic keys only sold by the power authority and personalized for everyone. That means, if a tenant loses his panel key, s/he has to file a loss/theft claim and take a pilgrimage to the power authority to get a new, registered key... and I don't think these keys are cheap!
Would you want to pay at least $3k just for "Having a ground wire pulled through the existing conduit to your meter" because grounding to water pipes is no longer legal?
What seems like a simple job turns into a nightmare - in order to access the feeder conduit the meter seal has to b opened. That means the existing 6mm2 4 wire feed is no longer sufficient (PoCo requires 10mm2 even though they only offer 25 amp fuses for which 6mm2 is fully sufficient), for 10mm2 the existing 30mm conduit is too small, the old main fuse box has to be replaced, necessitating new boxes with the new locks in the whole building,...
Anyone surprised why people will do anything to avoid having the PoCo involved?