# POCO vs. NEC



## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

InPhase277 said:


> He told me that they (the POCO) allow that kind of service to be fed with 4/0 copper. Of course, that would save me a bundle on the other three services, but the NEC says I have to use 400 kcmil minimum. So what would you guys do, use the POCO spec, or the NEC?


If the conductors are on the customer side of the service point you must follow the NEC.

That said it sounds like these conductors supply more than one service disconnecting means if that is the case the NEC only requires the conductors to be rated as high as the calculated load not the total of the service disconnects.



> 230.90(A)Exception No. 3: Two to six circuit breakers or sets of fuses
> shall be permitted as the overcurrent device to provide the
> overload protection. The sum of the ratings of the circuit
> breakers or fuses shall be permitted to exceed the ampacity
> ...


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

The thing is there was no service calc. The reason being the customer simply wanted to upgrade the outside without upgrading the inside. In other words, the old 100 A panel was left in place and fed from a 100 A breaker in the diso outside. They wanted to capacity to put 200 A panels in in the future.

I figured the safest way to go would be with 400 A service SEC's, since we can't calculate a "future load". Since I bid and won the job using 400 CU, I feel that I should just keep using it, but the POCO douche had me wondering if I should just drop to 4/0 since they allow it. What would you do?


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

POCOs aren't bound by the NEC. That's how they 'get away' with feeding a 200a service with #2.


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## woodchuck2 (Sep 18, 2009)

Hmmm, an older post but around here when we have something like this in question i just contact a planner from the POCO to see what their opinion is and then call my inspector to see if he will accept the planners opinion. Most of the time the inspector will follow what the POCO recommends.


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