Power Requirements for Industrial Machinery

I don't do Industrial Electrical, but If i had to take a guess I'd say "We need more power!" and your proper response would be "I'm givin her all she's got captin!"

Well, it depends heavily on what equipment must run at the same time, etc.

All equipment that has to run at the same time must be added as part of the maximum load.

If you can parse out power to machines, then the largest load plus anything that will be on all the time (so to speak) will be the max.

Its not really that complex. But, as you mentioned, if youd like to turn all the equipment on at the same time, just add all the stuff and you'll end with roughly 2500A consumption with some safety. If you have a substation rated to 1500A, friend, youre 1000A behind. Check the cycle time and schedule the equipment is on. You may be surprised needing only half of the total power. This time and schedule we cannot help with. Depends on your plant - and equipment.

This is a great help, amazing solution.

Thanks for the help people. I had already gone the route of adding things up but thought there may have been something more complicated behind it. Thanks for putting me straight. At least I now know where I can start with my worst case scenario and work backwards from there.

Cracking forum by the way. I might start hanging around here a bit more as I get involved with this project.

Just for fun, when designing a building assumed to be somewhat 'normal,' engineers will tabulate breakers and load distribution across three phases for each panel. Service to the building may be 50% - 75% of the total load in the tables, but because all loads are assumed to not be all 'on' at the same time, the service usually is sufficient.

When the building is something like a university research laboratory, one can never tell what kind of equipment may be moved in and need power. As such things do happen around here all the time, I'm never without some kind of power problem to solve, and a lot of times, it can be a real pain in the a**!

Your 1500 Amp Substation will not be able to support all to the 1750 total amp load listed at the same time, not to mention miscellaneous uses.

Call the local power company and have them come out to survey your needs and make suggestions.

If on the other hand you are considering purchasing the property take the need for uprgrading the electrical facilities into account. Hire a professional electrical engineer to advise you.

Are you grinding and shredding asteroids or does everything run on 12 volts? Some of these power requirements seem huge for the equipment you have listed unless you're running a foundry or ship yard. Either way, I would run as much 480 3-phase as I could to save on wiring costs and consult with the local utility about additional drops.