Omnibuswoman Posted November 3, 2020 Share Posted November 3, 2020 (edited) I’ve just had the quote through from WPD for connecting us to the network- over £14k. That was not what I was expecting. Looks like they want to do some upgrading at largely (70%) our expense. I don’t really understand what they are proposing or why. Can anybody help decode this for me please? The chap next door (north of us) is waiting for planning consent on his land for 5 houses. We might be sensible to wait for him to foot the cost of upgrading local cabling before we get connected.... Edited November 3, 2020 by Omnibuswoman Removed duplicate photo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted November 3, 2020 Share Posted November 3, 2020 3 minutes ago, Omnibuswoman said: The chap next door (north of us) is waiting for planning consent on his land for 5 houses. We might be sensible to wait for him to foot the cost of upgrading local cabling before we get connected. as long as the upgrade will still support your additional house?, or offer him 1/6 th of the cost to upgrade for 6 additional houses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 3, 2020 Author Share Posted November 3, 2020 Just now, joe90 said: as long as the upgrade will still support your additional house?, or offer him 1/6 th of the cost to upgrade for 6 additional houses. Provided his planning consent comes through, that sounds like an excellent plan. We weren’t terribly keen on the idea of the 5 houses next door, but still, every cloud... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 UPDATE: I had a call from the WPD chap today and have established that we are required to 70% fund a new 300mm cable to be installed from the main supply down to the pole opposite the end of our driveway. He said that the current 95mm cable will not accommodate our supply in addition to the other houses in the street, and in order to stop everyone else's lights going out, it must be replaced. Hence the large bill. No account is taken of the fact that we are building a low energy house (a passive house) and plan to have the smallest use of energy possible. He said that they are required to supply us with a 15kw supply irrespective of our potential use. I'm now googling 'living off grid'.....? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 300mm?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 5 minutes ago, Oz07 said: 300mm?! Sorry, 300 mm2 (whatever that is??) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 Where abouts on that plan is the neighbours proposal? The danger is YOU pay for the new big cable, that he then just uses effectively for free. I would try and speak to someone technical. A Wavecon 95 is a 3 core plus N 95 square mm cable. If it is currently serving 2 properties then there us potentially one spare unsed core just waiting for you. Try telling them you are building a low energy house and would accept a 12kVA supply if the existing cable could accommodate that. Otherwise you need to do a joint upgrade with your neighbour so you fairly share the upgrade costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 They've got a bag of sand in for tree cutting. Think @ProDave advice is the best bet. Also sharing with neighbour if they get permission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 Thanks ProDave. The chap from WPD told me that the current 95 cable is serving a pole opposite our driveway which provides the whole street. Maybe he wasn’t quite right about that... The new development will be in the field to the north of us, where the replacement cable is to be run through. It may well be a better option for us to wait and see if he gets planning consent, and then to come to an agreement to approach WPD to supply his five and our house, and we pay 1/6th of that cost instead. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 21 minutes ago, ProDave said: Try telling them you are building a low energy house and would accept a 12kVA supply if the existing cable could accommodate that I explained a few times about our low energy house, but the chap seemed to think that our use would be higher than usual, especially as we are planning to heat the house and hot water with an AHSP. I explained several times that this is a low energy system as it’s a passive house, but he said that AHSPs “make other people’s lights flicker” as they are such heavy users of power. I find that difficult to compute in the context of this being a good option for a super insulated house. I wonder if I should try to speak to someone else... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 28 minutes ago, ProDave said: A Wavecon 95 is a 3 core plus N 95 square mm cable. If it is currently serving 2 properties then there us potentially one spare unsed core just waiting for you. Is this represented by the turquoise lines leading off from this cable along our driveway? It certainly looks as though it is feeding two houses, not three... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 19 hours ago, Omnibuswoman said: Provided his planning consent comes through, that sounds like an excellent plan. We weren’t terribly keen on the idea of the 5 houses next door, but still, every cloud... The problem with that is: will the op be building the houses himself? We had this Scenario when we were handed a quote for £25k for connection, there is a piece of land next to us with pp for 5 houses and we approached the owners of it to see if they would be willing to share the cost of the new cable required but they had no intention of building the houses so weren’t interested although they didn’t tell us that straight out, just disappeared off our radar. The energy company weren’t interested in the fact that there were going to be more houses requiring connections either, they said until they made an application for a connection they could only charge us for it and when or if more applications were made for connections (providing this happened within 5 years) we would get a refund. Luckily it all worked out for us as I have documented elsewhere and nearly 3 years down the line the other plots remain undeveloped. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 Another idea might be to raise your concern that you are upgrading the network for future houses. See if you can get a legal undertaking, that if future houses are connected to "your" new cable then the other new houses should be charged a fair proportion of this upgrade work and that money refunded to you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Omnibuswoman said: I explained a few times about our low energy house, but the chap seemed to think that our use would be higher than usual, especially as we are planning to heat the house and hot water with an AHSP. I explained several times that this is a low energy system as it’s a passive house, but he said that AHSPs “make other people’s lights flicker” as they are such heavy users of power. I find that difficult to compute in the context of this being a good option for a super insulated house. I wonder if I should try to speak to someone else... What a load of b@@llocks, an inverter ASHP will use less power than a 10kW electric shower. I did not tell our power supplier about our ASHP as I had heard stories of them only knowing about non inverter models and hitting me with an upgrade cost, as it was they totally cocked up our installation telling us power from our overhead fed next door (our stroppy, appose everything neighbour) when it turned out it didn’t and I ended up with a pole in the corner of my plot for no reason and a large cable across the plot which I had to dig for to help “my” costs. When they sent me the final bill I point blank refused, listed all their mistakes and a bill fir the work I had to do. Didn’t hear back!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 4, 2020 Author Share Posted November 4, 2020 Thanks all, some really interesting comments. Yes, @recoveringbuilder the chap next door, or rather his developer, are desperate to build those houses. They have submitted three planning applications over 3 years, and it looks as though this time they have overcome all of the previous concerns the planning dept cited to decline the other applications. I think the developer has invested quite a lot up front and wants his returns! I agree that we are basically being charged to upgrade the network. The chap from WPD said that the 70% charge (to us) for the work represents our ‘share’ of the new capacity, with the other 30% being how many new properties they could attach to the upgraded connection in future. I struggle with the maths of that... I also agree with @joe90 that he hadn’t a clue about AHSPs. I suspect he used this in his calculations and that is how come they think they need to upgrade the cabling. I will see if there is a way of getting a second opinion.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted November 4, 2020 Share Posted November 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Omnibuswoman said: I also agree with @joe90 that he hadn’t a clue about AHSPs. I suspect he used this in his calculations and that is how come they think they need to upgrade the cabling. I will see if there is a way of getting a second opinion.... I am sure there are people on this forum (cleverer than me) that can do the maths fir you regarding potential usage for your site so you can present the argument. I was given an 80amp fuse in my connection, have an ASHP, electric oven(s), and a workshop full of electric tools (and the usually washing machines etc). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reiver Posted November 6, 2020 Share Posted November 6, 2020 On 04/11/2020 at 21:33, Omnibuswoman said: I agree that we are basically being charged to upgrade the network. The chap from WPD said that the 70% charge (to us) for the work represents our ‘share’ of the new capacity, with the other 30% being how many new properties they could attach to the upgraded connection in future. I struggle with the maths of that... Mmmm, after looking up the current carrying capabilities of the Wavecon cables, I struggle too. A 95mm2 cable should do at least 3 houses @ 15KW, whereas the 300mm2 should do 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 6, 2020 Share Posted November 6, 2020 It's voltage drop that will dictate a big cable, not current carrying capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 7, 2020 Author Share Posted November 7, 2020 thanks @ProDave and @Reiver. I have two things to work out: 1) Is there any mechanism/entitlement to dispute by which to engage with WPD about their proposal, including their insistence on supplying a guaranteed 15kw rather than 12kw, and; 2) I need to understand how many houses feed off the current three core 95mm2 cable in order to ask that my house is supplied from this cable. The way the chap from WPD explained it (and I paid very close attention to this) is that the current 95mm2 cable supplies the whole street, via the pole opposite our driveway, and that there is insufficient additional supply capacity for my house, hence requiring the upgrade for the whole street (at largely my expense). That is why the upgraded cable runs all the way down to the pole, and also to my plot. If that is not the case, then I have grounds to challenge the proposal that I upgrade that cable. @ProDave as far as I can tell, the cable currently runs from a location about 100 metres to the north of our plot (labelled Drakewalls Mine on the plan above), and turns east part way along that route to run down our driveway and to the road. I've attached a zoomed in plan below showing that junction where the blue cable turns easy and a cable marked in red turns west. In theory (and I have no idea whether this is actually possible), if it is a 3 core cable with one spare core, they could take our supply from the point where the cable turns that corner (just about 30 metres north of our plot) and run it straight down to us - pending wayleave from our friendly neighbour. That would reduce the quote from £14k down to the cost of about 30 metres of trench/cabling plus the new metre box outside our workshop. Finger in the air, maybe £2-3k. I would be very happy with that. How do I find out whether there is capacity in this cable for that? And if there isn't, whether there is capacity in the cable that heads west from the point around 30m north of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 7, 2020 Share Posted November 7, 2020 I think you need a site meeting with someone technical to discuss all the options and to discuss your low energy needs etc to try and find a sollution. In our case, the Wavecon 95 cable was installed 17 years ago when our previous house was built. It was installed at SSE's expense due to them making a mistake in the quote, but that's another story. It runs about 200 metres down the road from the transformer and was feeding 2 houses. Our house was joined into that so a 200 metre long Wavevon 95 is hapily feeding 3 houses now. There was an "issue" when we applied for a connection that there was a capacity issue. We were only offered a 12kVA supply. We accepted as that is plenty and it came at a low cost, but the implication was if we wanted more, there would be some network upgrading to do and some bigger costs. At the time I thought the issue was the 100kVA transformer that is now feeding 8 properties, which works out at 12.5kVA available for each house and my assumption was if we wanted more they would have to fit a bigger transformer. I still have a suspicion they are trying to get you to pay most of the upgrade cost that will allow your neighbours development to be connected. I Don't suppose it will help by saying "this bloke on an internet forum has 3 houses connected to a 200 metre long wavecon 95 so it should be okay" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 7, 2020 Author Share Posted November 7, 2020 1 minute ago, ProDave said: I Don't suppose it will help by saying "this bloke on an internet forum has 3 houses connected to a 200 metre long wavecon 95 so it should be okay" ? You're right, that's probably not the strongest argument I could make!! I've just been doing some reading around the issue about ASHPs and flickering lights. @joe90 is right that standard AHSPs conform with the standard IEC 61000-3-2 which sets out the amount of electromagnetic interference from equipment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61000-3-2. I found a spreadsheet that sets this out and a list of heat pumps and their specifications on a website that the WPD website points to in connection with installing electric car chargers and heat pumps. My reading of these things is limited by lack of knowledge - I guess this is more @Jeremy Harris territory (and likely others who I'm not yet familiar with). I will approach WPD to ask if I can have a conversation with a technical person. I'm not sure if the chap I spoke to was an engineer or technical. He did seem to be able to explain things without hesitation, but that doesn't automatically tell me that he is giving me the whole picture, or that he understands the underlying issues. His answer to several of my questions was "I put the numbers into our ....... (can't think of the word he used, maybe spreadsheet or calculation formula) and this is what it tells me". That's not a terribly technically accomplished response! It doesn't feel, intuitively, that what WPD are proposing is either absolutely necessary, or indeed the most cost effective solution for me. Of course, there's no incentive for them to be cost effective as I have very little choice about who I can get to do this work. No market forces at play here really. It's clearly in their business interests to have me pay to upgrade the local supply, which I'm not willing to do unless it really is the only option. I also can't see how if the cable is three core, two cores go to my neighbours from that cable prior to it arriving at the pole. That would leave one core supplying the pole. If you look very carefully at the plan, the cable on the pole heading up and down the street is two core (50mm2 2C). So where does that come from? Surely not from my 95mm2 3 core cable? If that could be explained, I would be more likely to accept that in order to provide my supply, I need to pay to upgrade the whole thing. Does anybody on this website have that sort of detailed understanding of the electricity supply network? low-carbon-technologies-heat-pump-split-system-database-form.xlsx ENA Heat Pump Database Draft rev17.xlsx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted November 7, 2020 Share Posted November 7, 2020 I think you won’t have a lot of luck fighting them on the capacity, been there done that , if you are certain the planning next to you will go through and that the owner will build the houses, that will probably be your best option. In our case it was a builder who owned the land and he must have spent a fortune getting the planning as the neighbours threw everything at him to try and stop it even a petition with over a hundred signatures on it but it went through, we were stunned when after all that he decided to put the plots on the market and there they still are 3 years later, he’s had to renew the planning. In our case they gave in when they discovered they had a pole in our plot without a wayleave and we said they would have to remove it, at that point I would have thought if they were bluffing about the capacity they would just have connected us but they went ahead with the upgrade to the line and we only paid a fifth of the original quote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omnibuswoman Posted November 7, 2020 Author Share Posted November 7, 2020 Wow! How come they only charged you a fraction of the original quote? What was it they were asking you for in the first place that they decided wasn't needed? I'm pretty confident that the neighbour will get PP through this time. However it's been delayed since July when the decision should have been made, without any stated reason. The main hiccup for him is that there is a draft Neighbourhood Development Plan going through the statutory process which labels his field as a rural gap between two adjacent villages. If that gets through a referendum (next May) then his field may be excluded from development, or at the very least he would face a significant challenge to getting PP for 5 houses. His field is the last bit of green space before the next village starts, so there's a fairly strong basis for the gap to exist there. I think the planners might be wrestling with the possibility that granting consent now would scupper the NDP's allocated rural gap before it is voted on, which would render the plan pointless in that small regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 7, 2020 Share Posted November 7, 2020 One thing to stress at your next meeting is your proposed ASHP is a low power inverter driven heat pump with SOFT START. It is only the older "direct on line" start heat pumps that have a very high start current that can cause the lights to dim when they start up. Or (cough) tell them you have decided to fit a gas boiler instead? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted November 7, 2020 Share Posted November 7, 2020 They sent a quote for just shy of £25k which totally was going to blow our budget out the water. They needed to bring a new underground line 300m from the transformer at the bottom of the road. In desperation I decided to make a complete and utter pita of myself and kept escalating a complaint ( based on the fact that they stated on their website that they were committed to keeping their system up to scratch to enable new properties to get an affordable connection). I ended up in touch with their top man who agreed to look into what could be done. I was just on the verge of breakdown when I mentioned to him about the pole in our plot and they discovered they had no wayleave for it being there, I had already mentioned this to several of the minions without success but on speaking to him about it and him having no knowledge that I had already pointed this out further back the line, he quickly decided that rather than them having to reroute their whole network on that line they would be far better to give us what we were wanting at a fraction of the cost. Within a fortnight of speaking to him the new quote came in for £4.5k and we signed a way leave for the pole (and they paid us for having it there!) . The work was done exactly as they had first quoted for with the power being brought on a new line from 300m away. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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