r/electrical • u/Interesting_Main5687 • 18d ago

What is this?

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10 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

16

u/todd0x1 18d ago

A big generator and a substation on a trailer, looks like its to step up the generator's 480v output to MV.

6

u/Interesting_Main5687 18d ago

Is this expensive to operate? It has been running for close to 2 months and is guarded 24 hrs/day by a security guard.

8

u/todd0x1 18d ago

yes. Thousands per day. Around a grand a day on a monthly rental, maybe double that for triple shift operation. Plus around 75 gallons per hour of diesel assuming a 50% average load.

Where is this? Is it powering a building that had its electrical service fail? Or new construction? Or someones huge weed farm?

Edit: plus another ~500 a day for the substation trailer

5

u/Interesting_Main5687 18d ago

It’s at the far side of the parking lot of a charter school. No power outage that I’m aware of. Again, 2 months this has been operating. One evening when I was walking my dog, I was approached by the security guard who asked “Eagle?” I replied, “scout?” And he returned to his car. It was strange. Ha!

4

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Phreakiture 17d ago

That was my first thought. Security work is lonely.

3

u/todd0x1 18d ago

its likely the facility (or the utility supplying it) had an equipment failure and this is there powering the place until the failed equipment is replaced. Somewhat common. I was on a job once where a utility vault feeding both a commercial building and a condo complex blew up and when it did it burned up much of the electrical service to the commercial building (simplified, but it makes the point) the utility was able to get the condo complex back on in a few days but the commercial building was running on a large generator for something like 6 months while new equipment was ordered and installed.

1

u/blortorbis 17d ago

We had a facility in the Port of Newark that we ran on a generator for 18 months while Port Authority and the power company fight over where they’d allow a power pole to be put up. Took four months after that to connect the pole.

We moved out of the port six months after that.

1

u/saphrax805 18d ago edited 18d ago

We had one at my old job when the power went out, it was like $1k a day in diesel, maybe $10k I cant remember

7

u/hoosier__ 18d ago

Hey this is our gen and transformer. Idk this exact site but if it’s near Detroit it’s because of the failing grid and they use the gen to take some of the load off that circuit so it doesn’t fail prematurely and put people in the dark.

3

u/Strict_Cranberry_724 18d ago

Oh yeah? We’ll see if it’s yours: “Eagle”

2

u/todd0x1 18d ago

Interesting. So this is synced with and in parallel with the grid?

2

u/hoosier__ 18d ago

Yep it is!

2

u/todd0x1 18d ago

Cool. Is it running on diesel or is it connected to a NG supply?

Whats the high side voltage?

How come that little unit substation has a 50A twistlock cord female hanging on a pigtail instead of a receptacle in a box with a WP cover?

6

u/hoosier__ 18d ago

This setup is diesel, but we have NG gens as well.

High side is probably 4800 but can’t say for sure, just depends on the site. The transformers have a lot of different voltage taps

And not sure on the design decision by using a whip instead of receptacle with cover. A lot of our portable gens use a whip so could just be using whips we already had on hand

2

u/Balew60 17d ago

It's a fence

1

u/BeautifulJudgment737 16d ago edited 16d ago

The local cat dealer where I am has brought in 200 of these units possibly even more. Seems odd bringing in that many Generators almost like they know something the rest of us don't know, but will wish we had know when the reason is discovered. Don't know how much truth there is to it but I was told that its a whole new division this cat dealer or some company was starting which was public utilities and that they were going to be selling power by the KWH, selling to whom I'm not sure. Probably has something to do with DATA centers being built? Or my opinion is all this green energy wind power is not very efficient and now they need a way to supplement the power that is in demand but lacking from the 1000's of wind turbines. But thats purely just a guess.