|
Looking to wire up a UPS at our office and I'm trying to double check we in fact have 3 phase power. Reason I ask is the building we are in is more of a residential meets commercial style, not really industrial. That and all of our circuits and appliances are wired up as single phase. I'm looking to add say a 42-60kW circuit and before we make the call on the hardware I want to make sure we actually have the incoming service to support it. I've taken a few photos of our main panel, the size of the wire coming in, the meter outside, and one of the distribution panels that takes the primary incoming service and divides it between both halves of the building (we own one side). This is the main outside panel before it gets split between the two halves of the building:  Here is our inside panel:  Here are the wires feeding our panel:  Those wires are 4/0 aluminum wires... four total from outside. Lastly here is a blurb on our meter feeding our side of the building:  I have no intention of doing this DIY obviously. My goal is to understand what we have so we can get the correct equipment ordered and be able to properly tell our electrician what to do. Since our main panel is full and our breakout panel only has single phase branching to it, I've already gathered some reorganization is going to be needed.
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 15:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 02:43 |
|
|
Yes, you have three phase power. 3p4w = three phase, four wire. Black-red-blue coming in on your lugs means it's probably 120/208 y-connected. 120V between any phase and ground (neutral), 208V phase-to-phase. You've got an 800A panel, but I don't see a disconnecting means, so I don't know the max current your service can support. I see a lot of 2-phase stuff on that panel, so it's gonna be fun to get a 3p breaker in there to do a subpanel. Get some info off the shutoff switch for your service. It will be near your meter, and there may be another one close to that panel. 60KW 3p @208V (.8pf assumed) is like 200A, so that's a SIGNIFICANT draw.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 17:40
|
|
|
Just checked outside near our service entrance and it has two breakers (for each half of the building) that are 200A switches. Realistically we are probably going to be sizing this guy for 24kW (12kW UPS to start, room for an 8kW or 12kW expansion module).
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 18:01
|
|
|
Babyeater already confirmed it's a 3 phase panel, but your company should probably budget for a panel replacement (and associated downtime) as well - that panel is seriously small (as in smaller than the single phase panel 100A panel I have at home), and you already have several doubles in there. Realistically, you can combine four of those circuits into two doubles, which still only opens up two slots (you could pull 208 from two slots, but not 3 phase). I do see a largish breaker with thick enough wire that it probably leads to a subpanel - you may be able to relocate some stuff to the subpanel, but personally I'd just swap out the entire panel. You mentioned you have an electrician - is he/she familiar with how a large UPS works? If not, you should probably find one that is, and also figure out what circuits, outlets, equipment, etc need to be on the UPS before you talk to them. You also didn't mention if you have a generator, or if you just want a UPS to keep everything going through a brownout/brief blackout. Even the biggest UPS can only be expected to keep your equipment going for less than 30 minutes (expect less than 7-10 minutes if it's close to capacity); if this is stuff that's mission critical and absolutely cannot go down, you should look into a UPS + generator. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Mar 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 08:45
|
|
|
some texas redneck posted:Babyeater already confirmed it's a 3 phase panel, but your company should probably budget for a panel replacement (and associated downtime) as well - that panel is seriously small (as in smaller than the single phase panel 100A panel I have at home), and you already have several doubles in there. Realistically, you can combine four of those circuits into two doubles, which still only opens up two slots (you could pull 208 from two slots, but not 3 phase). I do see a largish breaker with thick enough wire that it probably leads to a subpanel - you may be able to relocate some stuff to the subpanel, but personally I'd just swap out the entire panel. This is good stuff. Mission-critical stuff becomes a whole new world electrically with automatic transfer switches and independent conduit runs and things like that. Wonderful new grounding requirements, too, depending on how you do it. Of course, if it's just a couple of servers that need to know when the power's out so they can shut down in an orderly manner, then your UPS basically looks like a dryer or oven, electrical-wise.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2015 14:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 02:43 |
|
|
some texas redneck posted:Babyeater already confirmed it's a 3 phase panel, but your company should probably budget for a panel replacement (and associated downtime) as well - that panel is seriously small (as in smaller than the single phase panel 100A panel I have at home), and you already have several doubles in there. Realistically, you can combine four of those circuits into two doubles, which still only opens up two slots (you could pull 208 from two slots, but not 3 phase). I do see a largish breaker with thick enough wire that it probably leads to a subpanel - you may be able to relocate some stuff to the subpanel, but personally I'd just swap out the entire panel. The plan right now is moving small stuff over to the subpanel (100A breaker feeding that with maybe 20 circuits on that side with room for all the small stuff to move over). Getting a larger panel at this stage won't really do us much good in the long run. The building was remodeled so there is no expansion besides lab gear in the past 8 years. This one new breaker is going to basically be the last expansion it sees. Another problem is adding a circuit is an easy project. Changing out the panel and messing with the service directly requires an engineering plan, submission to power company for approval and a much larger cost. Adding a circuit doesn't have those requirements. Electrician knows how to string out the necessary wires for this project. I was able to get him out actually same day that I made this post to go over some of our plans. The UPS will literally run the lab completely and the flexible design allows for expansion as we grow by slotting in another modular unit. (Eaton BladeUPS). UPS is to just ride out minor blips at this stage, nothing long term. Its a large test/dev lab so if the lab goes offline we all go home for the day. On the UPS install specifically, Eaton is sending out a deployment specialist who will take it from wired up circuits to a configured and deployed UPS.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2015 00:51
|
|