Help! Electrical connection gobbledygook

[WWilts]

Received electrical connection quote for 3 phase, from about 50m away. Nearly £10k. Unaffordable.Our aim now: get electricity to the site with minimal expense. No heat pump, no heavy machinery planned.

Diagram accompanied quote. I marked the diagram up in green.

Diagram has lots of notation. What do the various abbreviations mean? Need to make intelligent decisions, but it is all Greek to me.

Particularly those abbreviations I have marked A, B, C, etc. .....

 
SSE quoter revealed that single phase goes right by the front of our property. The blue line I marked as X used to connect to a single cottage to the west, now demolished to make way for several houses. They "capped"/disabled that former connection (I don't know the right electrical term). I believe the "stump" of that blue line is still buried within our property, near the road. 

 

And what is the red dot marked A? It is quite near our new build, and right near the neighbour's garage.

When I asked SSE to quote for both 3 phase and single phase they advised me to raise a separate application, for just single phase. How many kVA should I ask for, given the info on the diagram? Neighbours seem to have 35x1CAI (possibly 35mm cable, but what does 1CAI mean?) If only we could decipher all those abbreviations ....

 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by WWilts

[ProDave]

WHY did you ask for 3 phase?

 

The first thing that stands out is "Breach joint into 4 core cable as customer wants 3 phase"  So choose single phase and that looks like one hole in the road and one junction not needing to be made.

 

35mm 1 CAL is 1 core concentric aluminium cable.  Think of an overgrown super sized coax cable. That is the standard supply cable used mostly.

 

What did the single phase quote say, how much cheaper was that?  Post the entire wordy bit of the quote, that will itemise where all the costs are. (anonymise it of course)

 

If you have not asked for the single phase quote, ask for 21KVA.  Then show us the exact quote.  IF you find they are asking for network upgrade costs, then try a lower rating, our supply is only 12KVA and that is plenty for a low energy house.

 

How are you going to heat the house?

[WWilts]

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

How are you going to heat the house?

Underfloor heating, gas fired boiler. Only 3 first floor bathrooms will have electric UFH.

Only asked for 3 phase on the off chance that it was not much more costly than single phase. And thinking it would future proof the house for electrical vehicle charging. Silly to pay £10k for that, though.

 

There is an arrow marked 11kV pointing to a spot within our property. What could that be?

Just noticed that 185 x 3C Al goes right past the front of the property, in the public footpath. The quoter had mentioned ECCR (where a second comer connects to supply cable paid for by a previous customer). The quoter was probably thinking that 3 phase could be supplied to us from that 185 x 3C Al. We would then have to pay some ECCR charge in addition to whatever the SSE quote was. Only subsequently did the quoter write to say we would have to go to the corner (50m distance) to get 3 phase, and ECCR would now not apply. Is it worth asking for a quote with ECCR using that 185 x 3C?

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by WWilts

[ProDave]

The 11KV is just that, hight voltage 11,000 volts.  This is the feed TO the substation, which is the pink rectangle in the bottom right.

 

Your supply comes FROM that substation.  For minimum cost to you, you just need to find what you can connect to just by jointing into the cable going past the front of your house.  Clearly you cannot get 3 phase that way.  What is not clear is for the 3 phase option, do they have to just dig 2 holes and make some joints, or is that a new section of cable to be installed between points C and F?  If tat is a new bit of cable tat goes some way to explain the cost.

 

I am near certain a single phase connection, if it is within te existing capacity on the cable going past your front, will be substantially cheaper.

[WWilts]

Quote text attached

Quote electricity connection.pdf

[Mr Punter]

With our network (UKPN) you would just raise a new job for single phase and ignore the 3 phase quote.  They cannot cope with amending the quote and prefer to start again.