AMA - Insane Electric Utility Requirements

Today’s question comes from Omar.

I’m working the design of a new building and the electric utility is forcing me to change the design of the electric meters from a wiring closet inside the hallway of a residential building to the building’s exterior. This is going to require the running of conduit for several hundred units from the transformer vault to the exterior of the building and then from the outside back into a wiring chase. I’m estimating the cost of this additional electrical work at nearly $4000 per unit. I’m facing a project cost impact more than $800,000. What can I do to save cost? Having a few hundred electric meters on the exterior of the building is going to consume a lot of area and be very ugly. Their constraints just seem insane. Do I just have to meet the utility’s requirements or are there alternatives?

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Host: Victor Menasce

email: [email protected]