Electrical mandates short-circuit common sense

This is from Jeff who manages 2,500 apartments in the San Jose area. He has done the hard calculations that should have been done by the State, by the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board, and by the City of San Jose.

This is a real-world study of what is necessary to electrify a 40-unit apartment building.

Initial Issues

1. Rough estimate for the cost to electrify this 40-unit building $600K-$1M. That is just for the upgraded common area power and the power to each unit, and that doesn’t include the water heaters or heaters themselves.
2. Electrifying requires: trenching 2x new power feeds from the poles, 2x new transformers, 2 new meter banks, running 40 power wires from the meters to units, 40 new breaker panels, 40 wires to the heaters, 40 new heaters, and 40 exterior locations to mount heat exchangers.
3. PG&E is extremely backed up — minimum 6+ months for design review and another 12+ months for construction scheduling (I learned this on another project). We estimate a minimum 24–36 months just to get the power feeds trenched from the pole to the building.
4. Many apartment units are adjacent to driveways, therefore leaving no place to mount the external condensers and heat exchangers.
5. Further complications. If there is no methodical progression of phasing out gas, then renters could easily be caught without heat and hot water. What would have been a repair to a heater, now turns into a major remodel as the housing provider scrambles to convert a gas heater to an electrical heating system. Also consider the complexity of buildings in San Jose built in early 1900 with knob and tube wiring and lathe and plaster walls.

Here’s what is necessary to solve these issues:

1. Provide funds to property owners and housing providers to cover the costs of planning and construction. Housing providers burdened by rent control and the eviction moratorium will need additional financial assistance.
2. Provide funds to PG&E to shorten its design review process and shorten its construction timeframe significantly. Imagine 100,000 PG&E customers trying to upgrade power over the next 5–8 years to meet the deadlines without bolstering PG&E’s service teams.
3. Provide funds to cities like San Jose to shorten its permitting process and increase staff.
4. A 30–50 year strategy to rollout upgrades systematically throughout the bay area.

I support electrification, but mandating a 5–10 year timeframe is irresponsible and will leave millions of people (mostly low income tenants) without heated water and heat in the winter.

Now let’s take a look at the hard core details from a contractors perspective.

Electrical load calculations and the challenges of electrifying a 40-unit apartment building are a complicated process.

First we need to access the current configuration:

Each unit has a 60-amp breaker panel.

Each unit is fed from a 60-amp meter by #6 feeder wire.

Each unit has a 240V range/oven, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, disposal, and gas wall heater with a calculated load of ~52 amps.

Two main circuits are going into Richfield — each are 600A and each main services 20 units.

Second we need to create a new configuration with heat pump:

Heat pump for a 550 square foot unit requires additional 240V/20A service.

New calculated load for each unit is now ~72 amps, which requires a new 80A breaker panel and #4 feeder wire from mains to units.

New calculated load on each main is increased from 600A to 800A.

Changes necessary to accommodate addition of heat pumps:

Upgrade the 60-amp meters to 80+ amp versions.

Run #4-gauge feeder wire from the meters to the units.

Swap out the 60-amp breaker panels for 80-amp versions in each unit.

Run wire from the breaker panel to the heat pump in each unit.

Upgrade the two 600-amp mains to 800-amp mains.

Many parameters and variables to consider:

1/3 of the units are 730 square feet, so they will require slightly larger heat pumps than I’m using for this example, which may increase the calculated load.

#4-gauge wire is larger than #6 and requires 1” conduit. We don’t know the size conduit used, if any. If the conduits are less than 1” or don’t exist, then we’ll need to open the walls to add 1” conduit for all the units.

The mains and meters will have to be upgraded before installing any heat pumps otherwise we exceed existing load capacity. Upgrading entails PG&E engineering/design, trenching, concrete pads, new dedicated transformers, and coordinated cutovers. PG&E queue length is currently ~6 months for engineering and design, and that was before the storms. Everything over 400 amps must run underground, which requires trenching and a new transformer on a concrete pad for each main.

Converting to electric water heaters adds another ~40A for each tank and we’ll need two at Richfield for 40 units.

Converting gas dryers to electric adds another ~60A for the 4 dryers. Combined with the hot water, it requires an upgrade of one or both mains to 1,000 amps.

We’ve replaced all the lighting with LEDs throughout, including the common areas — not much else left to put on a diet.

EV charging isn’t even included in this model and there is no capacity unless the mains are 1,000 amps minimum.

This is just the beginning. Before issuing mandates, experts in housing, electricians, PGE, and appliance suppliers must be consulted for a well thought out steady plan forward.