benben5555 Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Hi, Does anyone know the cost of a 200kva transformer upgrade? We've been told we will need to pay 20% of the cost of the upgrade. Its pole mounted and they are going to give us a quote, but not for 6 weeks. Anyone had a similar experience? It's Western power. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 What is the context? New buiild? rebuild? What did you ask for? what did they offer? We dodged this when getting a quote for our new build and they offered us a 12KVA supply from the existing transformer to which we replied that will do nicely. And it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanR Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 18 minutes ago, benben5555 said: Does anyone know the cost of a 200kva transformer upgrade? Are they charging you the whole cost of a new 200kVA transformer? For a new 3 phase, 45kVA connection, I was charged £2,819.60 to upgrade the pole transformer from 50kVA to 100kVA, back in 2016. Here's mine. I feel like putting my name on it! Lot's of other charges for the connection. Total bill was over £7K iirc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 SSEN wanted us to pay 15th/25ths (that's the way they expressed it) of the transformer upgrade cost which came to £3,800. I think that was upgrading a 25KVa to a 50KVa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benben5555 Posted May 13, 2022 Author Share Posted May 13, 2022 2 hours ago, IanR said: For a new 3 phase, 45kVA connection, I was charged £2,819.60 to upgrade the pole transformer from 50kVA to 100kVA, back in 2016. Was that the full cost or your share of the cost? And did that also include your new connection? The cable runs across our land so the new connection is only around £1,500. The transformer upgrade is the unknown part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 What capacity supply did you apply for? and on who's recommendation was that? How many existing houses supplied by the present transformer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrerahill Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, benben5555 said: Hi, Does anyone know the cost of a 200kva transformer upgrade? We've been told we will need to pay 20% of the cost of the upgrade. Its pole mounted and they are going to give us a quote, but not for 6 weeks. Anyone had a similar experience? It's Western power. Thanks I think you will be expected to pay about 10-20K for that. We recently put in an application to Western for a project of ours and needed a HV POC with a 250kVA tranny, that was £100,000. We wanted 175kVA from that right enough so deduct some for smaller cables to your property. You should have applied for no more than 2-5kVA for a residential power supply, you might want to check what you are looking for and see if someone has screwed up their figures. Edited May 13, 2022 by Carrerahill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benben5555 Posted May 13, 2022 Author Share Posted May 13, 2022 41 minutes ago, ProDave said: What capacity supply did you apply for? and on who's recommendation was that? How many existing houses supplied by the present transformer? We asked for 55kva based on nothing except that was the maximum we could have without special metering (or something like that). We already have 15kva to the existing house but with an ASHP and car charges seemed sensible to ask for more. Demolition and rebuild. 380m2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrerahill Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) 3 minutes ago, benben5555 said: We asked for 55kva based on nothing except that was the maximum we could have without special metering (or something like that). We already have 15kva to the existing house but with an ASHP and car charges seemed sensible to ask for more. Demolition and rebuild. 380m2. Stick with the 15 - plenty. Are you just converting your estimated load into kVA? If so this is where you are going wrong. 60kVA is the magic number, over 60 you need CT metering which is costly in its own right. A couple of K for the CT chamber and meter etc. Edited May 13, 2022 by Carrerahill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanR Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 1 hour ago, benben5555 said: Was that the full cost or your share of the cost? And did that also include your new connection? The cable runs across our land so the new connection is only around £1,500. The transformer upgrade is the unknown part. The Quote from Network Power reads as if the £2,819.60 is the whole cost for the new 100kVA Transformer, rather than just my 45kVA portion of it. On top of this there was £3,300 to install 130m of 3 phase cable from the telegraph pole to my kiosk, in a trench that I dug, and make the connection, plus other amounts for reinforcing the local overhead lines from transformer to telegraph pole, +++ Total cost was £7,600. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 As above. I got good advice on here, and we chose not to upgrade from single to 3 phase. Our floor area will be about 400m2, and our immediate thought was to upgrade, which needed the transformer upgrade and about £10k When you do the sums it is surprisingly little power. LED lights, ASHP for heating, and nothing is running all the time. If it was, just imagine the electric bill. Car charging too, will be slow charging in a domestic situation. Just to avoid any confusion, I have seen several instances of people using ashp output as if that was an electric need. You would have about 15kVA output, but 4kVA input. The electric company (SSEN) were really helpful, esp on the phone once there was a contact, and we are now only diverting from overhead to underground to the new plant room (I think £1,200 in our trench. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benben5555 Posted May 13, 2022 Author Share Posted May 13, 2022 1 hour ago, saveasteading said: we chose not to upgrade from single to 3 phase. How can I easily work out what our power requirement will be. We will have a 14kw ASHP, 300l water tank, induction hob, double oven, one electric shower (others off the main system), probably a car charger in the future Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanR Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 (edited) 15 hours ago, benben5555 said: How can I easily work out what our power requirement will be. Your loads appear typical, so a typical connection should be sufficient. At the time I requested a connection I was told 20kVA was "typical". Because I was requesting something untypical, and they knew I was a home owner and not an electrician, they wanted me to prove the load size with a (I think it was called) diversification calculation. This was the total loads connected x a factor (ks factor?) that allowed for them not all being in use at the same time. Different connected items seem to have different ks factors. In the end I just got the electrician to speak to them and they accepted what he told them without the need for any proof. Edited to add. 3 phase may be an advantage though, allowing more than a 3700kw solar PV connection, without DNO approval and for EV charging at above 7kW. Edited May 14, 2022 by IanR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrerahill Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 (edited) On 13/05/2022 at 19:24, benben5555 said: How can I easily work out what our power requirement will be. We will have a 14kw ASHP, 300l water tank, induction hob, double oven, one electric shower (others off the main system), probably a car charger in the future If it was commercial building a load analysis would be carried out, but in the case of domestic they use a standard load, in this case an ADMD of 2.5kVA would be about normal - stick with the 15kVA and you will be more than fine and will have the equivalent of 6 houses capacity and that is as per SPEN, UKPN and Western Power, not sure about other DNO's but those 3 I deal with regularly enough and plenty of IDNO's can state with certainty that your sorted. We put in an application with Dewhurst (IDNO using Western network in this case) last week for 16 flats, each flat has a 7.9kW ASHP - all electric and some EVC's, for the whole development I applied for 52kVA total POC - 32kVA for the flats at 2kVA each and 20kVA for the landlord supply which has a lift and 2 EVC's on it. For the record, this does not mean you are fused at something lower, you still get a 100A fuse and can still pull 100A if/when needed. They just won't sell you a supply designed on your max demand or else we would all have excessive supplies. It is all designed to keep transformer sizes down and upstream HV network infrastructure sensible. Edited May 17, 2022 by Carrerahill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benben5555 Posted July 17, 2022 Author Share Posted July 17, 2022 For anyone who might pick up this thread... We've now been told by Western Power that the rules are changing from April 2023 and the customer will no longer be required to pay for infrastructure upgrades! So there will just be a set charge for a connection regardless of the infrastructure upgrade requirements. A fair a sensible move I would say. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted July 17, 2022 Share Posted July 17, 2022 You get a heart for spreading good news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 On 14/05/2022 at 10:32, IanR said: 3700kw solar PV connection Is that a 4 hectare solar farm? Obligatory kW, not kw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Walker Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 If you have the space, 3m x 3m, they can put in on the ground for a lot cheaper cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 13 hours ago, benben5555 said: For anyone who might pick up this thread... We've now been told by Western Power that the rules are changing from April 2023 and the customer will no longer be required to pay for infrastructure upgrades! So there will just be a set charge for a connection regardless of the infrastructure upgrade requirements. A fair a sensible move I would say. Now that is good news, they might finally get around to changing our rubbish little T/x. I wonder how ridiculous the connection charge of getting our 60A fuses changed to 100A fuses will be then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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