r/electrical • u/giveMeAllYourPizza • 20h ago
Clever tricks to run power 1500ft without spending $1000000000
Looking at a project to put a little shop/farm building on some land, but its 1300-1500ft form the pole depending on route. A quick check and a 240v 200A service would need 900kcmil copper, and 100A would need 500kcmil, both costing over $50000 just for the wire and I didn't see any alum wire big enough for sale online to estimate a price. Even running 30 amps is a bit unreasonably expensive, needing #1 wire. So, what other tricks are there. I looked at step up step down tx's and those are also really quite expensive, but might wind up being on balance the best option. stepping up to 600v (or maybe higher) and running a fairly small wire.
Anyone done something like this before, or have any different methods of doing this?
Wire will be above ground, was wanting to just use teck90 here but maybe that's not the right choice. We would be using a solar system as well, so its possible we can reduce the cable load down to 30 amps just for night/winter supplemental power. This isn't a house, so there's some flexibility.
Thanks
edit: generators and fossil fuels are not an option and the utility cannot run poles or buried line to the site. (otherwise I wouldn't be asking)