PG&E question.

[itsmoked]

Got a guy needing bigger service. He has 200A 1p and PG&E told him, "No problem, we can give you 3p 208 or 240 200/400/or600A service, your choice".
The county said "Na-uh, no 600A but 400A is fine".

He requested 400A 3p 240V service and everything was moving forward until today.

Today a different PG&E engineer calls him and states, "If you want 3p you need to get an easement across the county road and we'll have to trench the county road, dig up your neighbor's yard for 30 feet then tear up your driveway. But if we stick with 1p we can just up-the-drop coming to your place and you can use a rotary phase converter."

This sort of feels like a brush-off play but maybe there's some rational reason for the radical difference between 1p and 3p upgrades. Anyone got any logic for this?

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Mbrooke]

It may be best to get an attorney involved and have him check the applicable laws to see if an underground service is really required.


Being PG&E and all that close online friends have told me about them I would not be surprised if the people you are talking to are clueless. Between communications, staffing and employee competence they have a lot to work on.


If this was around here they would set a new pole on the property, extend the 3 phase over from the road, new bank and drop no hassle. IMHO whats holding them back is getting 3 large pots on the already busy pole.

 

[cranky108]

Two things, PGE is not the same as PG&E, and the people I know at both companies are very good at what they do.

That said, I am also sure both companies, as well as mine have a few people who are lacking in some ways. And it's because good people are hard to find.

Many zoning regulations also pertain to undergrounding of electric lines. Check it out.

 

[davidbeach]

I'll agree with cranky, in this case the ampersand is important if you want to get the right company. They're the ampersand company, mine isn't.

The sucking lemons approach isn't useful, but there may be a variety of issues you aren't seeing. What the utility can do in the public right-of-way is governed by the governmental entity responsible for that right-of-way; what they can do in one city may not have any bearing on what can be done in a different city. You can even find that what can be done along a city street is different from what can be done along a county road that passes through the city, can be different from what can be done along a state highway in the same city.

If their largest TX is 4/0 and they're prohibited from (or just don't do) double TX road crossings there's no way to get there. Maybe a primary road crossing, but that might require new poles on both sides of the road to have the clearances for a primary tap.

The perpendicular crossing requirement for the underground option isn't a surprise at all, almost certainly a requirement of the road owner. Diagonal crossings just cause trouble down the road (no pun intended) and many cities don't allow them.

 

[Mbrooke]

Which is why someone who can make sense of it all needs getting involved. If PG&E can't give straight answers, you need someone who will. And yes I am well aware this is about Pacific Gas And Electric.