[landlord]

Our electric service provider wants to place another pole with guide wires near our sheds and drive which will cause probs for snow removal and driving in general. The situation is the utility company has a pole near the road they can put the transformer and then run triplex to us. But, the neighbors whose bin site sits behind us thinks the transformer should be closer to his pole so he does not have to pay for energy traveling from the road to his meter.
Is there really a difference in the electricity price the closer the transformer is to your meter?
There is a law with the utility company where you cannot have a transformer and meter on the same pole. Apparently there is a utility easement for power crossing our land. Probably grandfathered in.

 

[agmantoo]

The consumer only pays for power from the meter to the point of consumption. Any loses from the transformer to the meter are borne by the electric company. Provided the power is fed to the meter with the proper gauge wire there will be no noticeable voltage drop. The neighbor should not have any negative consequences.

 

[Janon]

Since they charge you per KWh, and that is what the meter reads, I'm assuming that the meter is actually a power meter and uses the voltage at the meter to make the calculations... so theoretically, it should not matter how far you are from the pole as long as the voltage drop is not severe.

cheers,

 

[rambler]

A bin site can take 400 amps. Big amps takes big wires. The longer from the transformer to the use of the power, the more line loss, so the wires have to be bigger yet. Someone needs to pay for those big fat wires.

Wouldn't that be the issue?

--->Paul

 

[John Hill]

As far as I know the meter likely only records Coulombs which is the quantity of electicity, which is current (i.e. amps) x time.

Kwh is current x time x voltage. The meter assumes the voltage to be some constant which will be less if there is a large voltage drop in the lines. If the neighbour is going to suffer a voltage drop he will be getting overcharged for his electricity.

Of course the meter actually being used may be better than that and actually measure volts and current.


I suggest the neighbour has a valid concern.

 

[Ross]

That makes sence John, and Paul is right there are some serious power requirements in a grain system (is there a drier involved?) so even a tiny overcharge is going to add up to a signifigant amount of money. I may be remembering wrong but my neighbor uses $500 worth of propane a day and about the same in power for close to 50 days.

 

[mikell]

Your neighbor is an idiot tell him it's his problem you don't need any more. Yes I did get up on the wrong side of the bed.

mikell

 

[landlord]

Thanks for the info. Let's just say when this 100% corn base farm came up for sale, the neighbor wrote a check for over 600 acres, times $2600 plus/acre. Frugal he is but then again that is probably how he made some of his money. No dryer set up just a couple of bins at the present time are being used with a fan on each. But there are 3 other bins not in use and may not be this season.

 

[agmantoo]

The meter is a true watt meter. It has no constants!

 

[landlord]

BTW, Mikell... my dh agrees with your post, wholeheartedly. OMG... two guys that think alike. :haha:

 

[John Hill]

I have just checked my notes regarding drag disk meter and am pleased to admit that Agmantoo is right, the meter does take voltage into account.

 

[Bob_W_in_NM]

I just have a 200 amp single phase service. When I had this installed, 20 years ago, the investor owned electric company would absorb up to 1500.00 of the cost in getting electricity to your service entrance. Within those guidelines, they offered latitude in "routing". I have an extra pole in the secondary, that I thought I needed to keep things out of the way of future construction. They did not want to run the secondary over 400 feet, due to voltage drop, and I was within those limits. I suppose that if one had a 480 volt, three phase service, the secondary could be longer. (Technically it could, anyway.) But you'd have to have a step-down transformer of your own to get voltage down to 120/240 so it could be used for most things.

I would think they would be willing to work with you a little, within technical limitations.

 

[landlord]

After talking with the Engineer. we may put our meter on the house and the transformer on the pole they said they would give us. I really do not want another pole within 30' to the house. Another option is to put the transformer on the pole by the road and running triplex to our meter and the neighbors meter pole, which they said they would pay for. The system currently has 4 overhead wires and they will take two off. Apparenly it was set up for a 3 Phase system at one time. With the ice and winds we have in the winters anymore it will be good news to have less overhead wires. I should step off, just for my own interest, (my guesstimate is 200-250') what the distance is from the road to the bin's site meter. But also from their meter the line runs underground about 200' to their bin site.