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Looking at building an eco house.
Timber construction, big south facing windows, lots of insulation, etc, etc.
The plot of land does not have any mains connection, and UK Power are quoting £60,000 (yes £60K) to supply a cable from the other side of the lane.
Planning to have air source pump and a PV system, with batteries.
How do I go about estimating the 'loadings?
Is kVA the right unit to be quoting, or just Amps?
I mentioned 20 kVA, but would hope to be about 5 kVA if its possible.
I expect part of their quotation is about cable size.
isn't 20 kva a standard install size for a household?
not sure you'd be able to downsize, if you had issues with you self supply solar kit etc you could easily overload a 5kva supply, therefore i doubt its even legal to install that small
and yes some of the pricing will be the cabling size, but a significantly small proprotion of the cost it wouldn't be worth considering. whatever cable goes in will need to be armoured etc etc so the conductor size probably contributes to an even smaller percentage of the cost
Seems expensive. Our estate is currently being upgraded from original 1970s cabling to three phase. Old system was a cable from main in street to my house then from my house to three other houses. Presumably to save a bit of ditching and cable costs. Every house is now getting it's own supply.
Actually three phase compatible. As I understand it we will still be single phase but wiring will be there for future proofing.
Zero cost to us.
£60k? This site quotes £10k for a rural connection.
"Site three requires supply in a rural position, entailing a 60m road dig with the distribution company digging as far as the boundary. This could cost up to £10,140."
https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/bringing-electricity-to-site
18kVa, roughly 80 amps is all that is put in for a lot of houses now, though I was told yesterday that they will be putting in 100 amps where possible, around 23kVa. If your house is musing anywhere near 80 amps, I’d be worried about the size of your bill.
I think the maximum demand on my house would be 40 amps, thats when the electric shower is on. An 80 amp supply would be plenty. They will not supply you with 5kVa, you’ll have to go for a 60 amp minimum, but more likely 80 amps. Note they dont put as supply in rated for the average load, they size it on the maximum demand.
There are people who run their electric totally off grid currently, but, it means a change in lifestyle. You will not be able to run a HP through the winter on a typical domestic solar set up. You will need roughly 100 panels to charge a large bank of batteries in December and January to run a HP. The cost for that will be well over £60k, and you’ll be replacing a lot of it every 10 years.
Go back to the DNO, and see how you can reduce the bill. £60k sounds a lot, are you paying for a new transformer? If so, you can usually negotiate the cost of that down, as everyone will benefit from a larger local transformer, you alone shouldnt have to pay the full cost.
Roadworks and trenches, it is usually cheaper to use a dedicated groundworks company to dig the trenches, moling may even be feasible. I’d be taking to an Independent DNO (iDNO) who can do all the work required, and probably cheaper than the DNO.
As above, 80A / 20Kva is typical supply. What is on the other side the lane? Overhead or underground? Are you rural? Can you see where the local transformer is and how many properties might be on it already? The transformer might already be at capacity and they're trying to change you for the whole upgrade.
Can't remember how much Rishi had to pay to upgrade the supply for his new swimming pool at his North Yorkshire mansion.
I second approaching an IDNO as they might be a better / cheeper option. I however wonder if the quote is high due to the disturbing loads you are installing. I recently spoke to National Grid about a supply upgrade and they noted that they are having to reinforce the network for many new properties due to the nature of disturbing loads such as heat pumps and PV and charging equipment so this might be such an instance in which case they will pass the cost of reinforcement to the customer?
Feel free to PM me. I work for one of the DNOs and presently look after the team that designs connections for customers.
The bad news is that if the cable they need to connect to is a few hundred meters away then £60k is not a spectacularly outrageous price.
If it’s a new connection to a cable that passes your plot you’re looking at a far less.
PS - IDNO for a single connection is not particularly common, ICP is more common. Both are alternative ways forward to a full DNO connection.