Establishing a load-based upper size limit to control oversizing of electrical equipment

Oversizing electrical distribution equipment is a concern in industrial facilities. It adds cost and can increase fault levels. IEEE Std 141-1993 provides guidelines on how to size electrical equipment but, at the early stage of the project, when the equipment is being purchased, much of the process information necessary to properly size the equipment is preliminary at best. Also, much is left to the discretion of the individual design engineer, who is often not an employee of the facility's eventual owner and, therefore, may have no incentive to reduce equipment size. In fact, depending upon the contractual relationship and due to the preliminary data, compressed schedule, and long delivery, design engineers tend to oversize the equipment. This paper describes an approach for establishing a load-based upper size limit to control oversizing of electrical equipment. The paper will demonstrate that establishing this upper limit can effectively control oversizing of the electrical equipment with information available at the early stage of the project. The resulting safety and economic benefits of the properly sized electrical equipment cascade throughout the power system.