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Module 12 · Real Project

Real Project: 5-Story Office Building Electrical Design

The program's baseline commercial project — the standard utility-to-switchboard-to-distribution chain that every later commercial and institutional project in this program deviates from in one specific, named way.

The project brief: a 5-story, roughly 120,000 sq ft speculative office building, 480Y/277V utility service into a main switchboard, step-down transformers producing 208Y/120V for receptacle panels, and dedicated 480V panels for HVAC and mechanical loads. This module walks the full load characterization (Table 220.12 lighting versus real installed density, a receptacle design allowance, and mechanical tonnage), two full worked calculations — the whole-building service demand and a single chiller feeder sized to its nameplate MCA — and the elevator feeder calculation under NEC 430.24.

It closes by naming, explicitly, how this project's three-path distribution architecture (480V direct to mechanical, 277V direct to lighting, stepped-down 208Y/120V to receptacles) is the exact baseline the school, hospital, industrial, and data center projects later in this program each build on. The full worked numbers, bill of materials, and design reasoning are part of the unlocked module below.

Free related reading in this studio
→ Commercial System Architecture Tool→ Transformer Sizing Calculator→ Short Circuit Calculator→ Concept Explainer: Wye vs. Delta

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