A 400-person plant adding 2 MW of service pays for five things the switchgear quote never mentions, and together they run $400k to $1.2M with one month of bridge power. The calendar is worse than the money: run the project the way most plants run it, utility estimate first and gear order second, and the crane lands in week 74. The Open Factory Large-Load Cost Table now carries the sub-5 MW tariff sheets that set those numbers, and this piece walks one Ohio plant through them: the utility’s 45-day estimate clock and 357-day build clock, the transformer the utility owns and cannot get, four CIAC formulas from four real tariffs, the 30-day permit rule, the arc-flash study, and the cost stack. The paid section is the sequencing that pulls energization forward by 20 weeks and the diesel math for the months you cannot pull forward.
Source: Open Factory Lead-Time Monitor (compiled from Schneider Electric Lead Times Guide, T&D World, NRECA; as of March 2026), OAC 4901:1-9-07, CPUC D.24-09-020, City of Cincinnati
Read it back: the utility’s firm estimate arrives at week 9, the plant decides inside the 90-day validity window at week 22, and the two 50-plus-week items, the LV switchgear and the utility-owned pad-mount, run from week 22 to weeks 72 and 74.
Seventy-Four Weeks From Decision to Crane
Every step on that chart has a published source, and none of them is the plant’s contractor. The utility owes an Ohio customer a binding cost estimate within 45 calendar days of a complete request, and that estimate is valid for 90 days, under OAC 4901:1-9-07(C), the line-extension rule every Ohio electric utility mirrors in its tariff. AEP Ohio’s Terms and Conditions of Service, Sheet 103 list what “complete” means: switch size, delivery voltage, total estimated load, connected-load list, operating characteristics, a site survey and first-floor elevations. Show up without the load list and the 45 days have not started.
What the rule does not give you is a construction date. Ohio publishes an estimate clock and no build clock, which is why the chart borrows the only published one in the country. California’s CPUC Decision D.24-09-020 (September 2024) set an average target of 182 days and a maximum of 357 days for a Rule 15 distribution line extension, measured from the customer’s request. Our Lead-Time Schedule uses the 357-day figure as the utility’s outer bound for a 2 MW job that needs no circuit upgrade; the model does not assume Ohio’s utilities are faster than PG&E’s.
The switchgear and the transformer sit on top of that. Schneider’s Lead Times Guide publishes 50 weeks for drawout LV switchgear (LVDO frames A through F) and 18 to 34 weeks for switchboards (A4 through F), and the Lead-Time Monitor carries both as published lead times, OEM and month labelled, not as deliveries. Order at week 22 and the lineup ships at week 72. That is the 74-week schedule, and nobody chose it; it fell out of doing things in the order the paperwork arrives.
The Utility Answers in 45 Days and Builds in 357
The two clocks matter because the utility’s answer is the trigger most plants wait for. In Ohio the answer has three parts, each dated in the rule: a nonbinding good-faith estimate within ten business days, a binding firm estimate within 45 calendar days, and a 90-day validity period after which the number can move with rights-of-way and “conditions beyond the reasonable control of the electric utility.” Land clearance, trenching and backfill on the customer’s own property are the customer’s cost regardless. The Interconnection Cost tool now runs down to 1 MW so a plant can put those three dates on its own calendar before calling the utility.
Source: CPUC, Decision D.24-09-020 fact sheet, September 2024
The bars read 357 days for a Rule 15 line extension, 335 for a Rule 16 service extension, 684 days where the job needs a new or upgraded circuit, 1,021 for a substation upgrade and 3,242 for a new substation. A 2 MW plant that lands on a circuit with no headroom is a 684-day job by California’s own maximum, not a 357-day one, and the utility’s screening answer is the only place you learn which one you are. Ohio has no equivalent numbers, which is a finding in itself and the reason the Large-Load Policy Tracker logs Ohio as “estimate clock only.”
The CPUC figures are targets set from five years of utility history, enforced by biannual reporting and a customer delay form. The What 50 MW Costs in 15 US Markets table treats them the same way, as the ceiling a utility will be asked to explain, not a delivery date.
The Transformer You Do Not Own
Under AEP Ohio’s tariff the company “will design, construct, own, operate and maintain the line extension and all other equipment installed to serve the customer’s load up to the point of service,” per Sheet 103-5. PG&E’s Rule 16 says the same thing differently: service transformers are PG&E-owned service facilities, and the applicant furnishes the pad, the substructures and the protective structures. The pad-mount that steps 12.47 kV down to 480 V for a 2 MW plant is therefore the utility’s purchase, on the utility’s queue, and the customer’s schedule hangs on it.
That queue is the one nobody budgets. The industry coalition NRECA joined in January 2024 told the Senate that a distribution transformer took “an average of one year to order and receive” before the pandemic and that the schedule “has grown to more than two years.” A T&D World survey of the utility supply chain quoted Hawaiian Electric’s lead time for single-phase pad-mounts jumping from 16 weeks to 142 and reported that “most OEMs are quoting 52 weeks plus for padmount transformers.” Wood Mackenzie’s August 2025 read put the 2025 supply deficit at 10% for distribution transformers and 30% for power transformers, with imports covering half of distribution supply. The Monitor’s working range for a utility-procured 2,500 kVA pad-mount is 52 to 104 weeks from the utility’s PO, and the utility does not place that PO until the CIAC is paid.
Source: BLS PPI WPU117409 and WPU1175 via Open Factory Lead-Time Monitor
The transformer index stands at 181 and the switchgear index at 171 in February 2026 against 100 in December 2019, per BLS series WPU117409 and WPU1175. That price path is inside the utility’s cost estimate too. Whatever share of the job the tariff assigns to you is a share of a 2026 transformer, not a 2019 one, and the Transformer Lead Times Hit 160 Weeks piece covers why the mills upstream are not going to relieve it before 2028. Both Ohio tariffs give the customer an escape hatch. AEP Ohio Sheet 103-7 paragraph 3.c: “If a substation is required as part of the line extension project to a customer, the customer shall be given the option of building, owning, and maintaining such substation.” The Transformer Sizing and Cost tool prices that option; the paid section below shows when it is worth taking.
CIAC: Four Tariffs, Four Answers
We pulled the line-extension sheets from four utilities and ran the same 2,000 kW service through each. The formulas do not resemble each other, which is the point of putting them side by side in the Large-Load Cost Table.
| Utility and sheet | Customer pays | Threshold for a 2,000 kW plant | Tax and refund terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEP Ohio, P.U.C.O. No. 22 Sheet 103-7; OAC 4901:1-9-07(D)(3) | 40% of the total line-extension cost, plus 100% of premium services (underground, oversizing), before construction | None; the 40% applies from dollar one | Premium-service CIAC grossed up for taxes; pro-rata refund if a new customer uses the facilities within 50 months |
| Georgia Power, Rules and Regulations Sec. C.2 (book effective Jan 2023) | Net job cost above 3.5x estimated annual base-rate revenue (overhead) or 2.5x (underground) | ~$2.0M underground at a $792k revenue proxy (10,512 MWh at 7.53 c/kWh); base rates alone give a lower figure | Refund if another customer connects within five years; utility not required to start until service contracts are signed |
| PG&E, Rule 15 Sec. C.2 and D; Rule 2 Sec. I; Prelim. Statement J | Total estimated installed cost above an allowance equal to net revenue divided by the cost-of-service factor (1.23%/month, 14.76%/year) | 24% ITCC on every contribution; refundable amounts refunded over 10 years; applicant builds pad and substructures | |
| ComEd, Rider DE Sheets 269 to 272.3 | Deposit equal to EXT COST minus the greater of the Standard Extension Cost (5,000 ft of three-phase overhead with transformer) or Five Year Expected Delivery Revenue, if the customer passes a credit screen | ~$1.38M at the 2026 Very Large Load secondary DFC of $11.49/kW | Deposit refundable over 10 years as delivery revenue arrives; letter of credit required at $2M and up |
Sources for the table are the Ohio rule, the AEP Ohio tariff book, Georgia Power’s Rules and Regulations for Electric Service, PG&E’s Rule 15, Rule 2, Preliminary Statement Part J and Schedule B-20, and ComEd’s 2026 Schedule of Rates. The revenue proxies use EIA’s December 2025 industrial prices from Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: Georgia 7.53 c/kWh, Ohio 9.33, Illinois 10.10, California 19.86.
Source: Open Factory Large-Load Cost Table (compiled from AEP Ohio P.U.C.O. No. 22 Sheet 103, OAC 4901:1-9-07, Georgia Power Rules and Regulations Sec C, PG&E Rules 2 and 15 and Schedule B-20, ComEd Rider DE; as of March 2026)
At a $600k utility job the Ohio plant writes a $240k check, the Georgia plant $0, the PG&E plant $0 and the ComEd plant posts $0; at $2.5M the figures are $1.0M, $521k, $0 and a $1.12M refundable deposit. Ohio’s 60/40 split is the only one of the four that charges a 2 MW customer anything on a typical job, because it is the only one that ignores the revenue the load brings. Georgia’s 2.5x multiple on base-rate revenue, PG&E’s revenue-divided-by-14.76% allowance and ComEd’s five-year delivery-revenue threshold all say the same thing in different words: a 2,000 kW load at a 60% load factor pays for its own extension through the bill. Ohio’s rule, effective in its current form since June 2023 and unchanged in substance since 2009, does not.
Three caveats sit in the Interconnection Cost tool inputs rather than in the chart. Georgia Power applies its multiple to base-rate revenue, which excludes fuel and riders, so the true allowance is below the $2.0M full-bill proxy. PG&E’s Rule 15 lets the company apply its own “non-residential allowances net revenue multiplier,” and every dollar above the allowance carries the 24% income tax component. ComEd’s credit screen is the gate: fail it and the threshold falls back to a Standard Extension Cost the tariff defines but does not print. The PJM Capacity Charge Estimator covers what the same 2,000 kW does to the Ohio bill after energization.
The Gear You Own Ships in 8 to 50 Weeks
The customer’s side of the meter is the part the plant controls, and the lead times there are published monthly. Schneider’s September guide is the one the Monitor carries this month: 50 weeks for LV drawout switchgear, 18 to 34 for switchboards, 24 for MTZ power breakers 600 to 6,000 A, 15 to 25 weeks for HVL medium-voltage switches and 40 or more for CBGS0 and GHA metal-clad, 24 weeks for I-Line II busway and 40 for plug-in units, 17 to 27 weeks for a 1,600 to 4,000 A transfer switch, 6 to 27 for an MCC lineup and 8 weeks for a DOE 2016 dry-type above 300 kVA. Siemens’ schedule as republished runs a similar spread. Every one of those is a made-to-order figure from release to manufacturing, which starts at approved submittals, not at PO.
Source: Open Factory Lead-Time Monitor
The chart reads 50 weeks for LV switchgear, 34 at the top of the switchboard range, 40 for the longest MV switchgear and busway, 27 for a large ATS or a full MCC, and a pad-mount transformer spread from 13 to 104 weeks. The customer-owned path for the transformer is 13 weeks from a stocking distributor at $98k to $104k list, against 52 to 104 weeks when the utility orders it, on the three vendor listings we could find for a 2,500 kVA pad-mount: Maddox at $104,000 and in stock, Bear Power Solutions at $98,000, and Western Powerline Supply at $98,000 with a “90 day lead time.” Those are list prices, n=3, not awards; the Public Bid-Tab Price Book will replace them with municipal and utility award bands as the rows come in.
The switchgear price belongs to Reading a Switchgear Quote, and the Quote Check tool is where a spec goes in and a band and a lead time come out. What belongs here is the deposit. Estimators are now told that a 10 to 20% deposit on the switchgear value to hold a production slot is a standard commercial mechanism, and that the slot clock starts on the deposit while drawings are still moving. That single fact is what makes the paid section’s schedule possible. The copper in the feeders moves weekly and lives in the Copper and Wire Price Sheet; the contractor’s hours are covered in Datacenter Construction Is Eating Your Electricians.
The 30-Day Permit Clock and the Arc-Flash Line
The permit is the one step where Ohio gives the plant a hard number. Ohio law requires a certified building department to act on a commercial plan submission within 30 days; Cincinnati’s Buildings and Inspections department states it directly on its permit review page: “Ohio law requires that we review your permit application within 30 days from when we receive it.” Columbus’s Building and Zoning Services publishes its submission standards and the code editions it reviews to, the 2024 Ohio Building Code and the 2023 NEC, but no turnaround figure of its own; the state clock is the one to plan on. Plans go in under ORC 3791.04 with an engineer’s seal, and a resubmittal restarts the count.
The arc-flash study is the line the insurer adds after the budget is approved. A study for a plant of this size costs $6,000 to $70,000 depending on bus count and drawings, and takes about nine weeks: Zech Engineering puts mid-size facilities at $6,000 to $14,000 and larger industrial sites at $14,000 to $22,000 or more (2026 pricing), Herzig Engineering (June 2025) puts a campus at $15,000 to $35,000, and e-Hazard (updated January 2024) reports a large food plant at about $70,000: 15 days of data gathering, five weeks of modeling, seven days of labeling. The number of buses is the primary cost driver, and every panel, switchboard, MCC and transformer the upgrade adds is a bus.
It is also not a one-time line. NFPA 70E requires the risk assessment to be reviewed at intervals not exceeding five years and whenever the system changes in a way that affects the results, and a new utility service, a new transformer and new protective-device settings are three such changes at once. The labels on the new gear are only correct after the utility confirms the available fault current at the new transformer, which is why the study sits at weeks 63 to 72 on the sequential chart and cannot be pulled earlier than approved submittals. How to Write an RFQ for Capital Equipment has the clause that makes the switchgear vendor deliver the settings file the study needs.
The Cost Stack Outside the Quote
Put the five lines together and the size of the miss is clear. We built the stack for the Ohio plant, low case to high case, with the transformer shown as the customer-owned option and the bridge power shown per month.
| Line item | Low | High | Mid | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Utility line-extension share, AEP Ohio 40% | $120k | $480k | $240k | 40% of a $300k to $1.2M utility job |
| Customer-owned 2,500 kVA pad-mount, list | $98k | $104k | $98k | Three vendor listings, n=3 |
| Arc-flash study and NFPA 70E labels | $6k | $70k | $22k | Zech 2026, Herzig 2025, e-Hazard 2024 |
| Temporary power rental, 2,000 kW, per month | $34k | $110k | $75k | Ziegler dry rate; Stag full-service range, Dec 2025 |
| Temporary power fuel, per month | $133k | $486k | $184k | Cat XQ2000 fuel curve at $4.859/gal, 352 to 720 h |
Source: Open Factory Large-Load Cost Table (AEP Ohio, OAC 4901:1-9-07); vendor list prices n=3 (Maddox, Bear Power, Western Powerline); Zech, Herzig, e-Hazard; Ziegler Rental, Stag Rentals; Caterpillar XQ2000 spec sheet; EIA diesel via FRED
The bars read $120k to $480k for the Ohio CIAC share, $98k to $104k for the transformer, $6k to $70k for the study, $34k to $110k a month for the rental and $133k to $486k a month for fuel. The fuel line comes from the Cat XQ2000 spec sheet, which burns 77.7, 107.8 and 138.9 gallons an hour at 50, 75 and 100% of its 2,000 kW standby rating, priced at the $4.859 a gallon US on-highway diesel average for the week of March 9, 2026. The rental line runs from Ziegler Rental’s dry monthly rate of $33,945 for a 2,000 kW unit to the $75,000 to $110,000 a month Stag Rentals quoted in December 2025 for a full-service package with fuel management. One month of a 2 MW diesel bridge at two-shift load costs more than the arc-flash study, the permit and the transformer together, and the Genset TCO tool is where the run-hours assumption gets tested against your own interval data.
What to Do Monday
Start with the utility, but not with the question most plants ask. Send the complete package Sheet 103-5 lists, ask in writing for both the nonbinding and the binding estimate dates under OAC 4901:1-9-07(C), and ask whether the plan of service puts you on an existing circuit or a new one; that answer decides whether you are on a 357-day clock or a 684-day one by the only published benchmark. Ask for the customer-owned transformer option under Sheet 103-7 paragraph 3.c in the same letter, so the utility’s estimate comes back both ways.
Then call the switchgear vendor and the insurer in the same week. Get the slot-deposit terms in writing, because the 50-week clock starts on the deposit, not on approved drawings, and get the arc-flash proposal priced per bus with the labels included, because the study has to be redone at the next service change anyway. The Large-Load Cost Table holds the four tariff formulas above and is adding the next eleven utilities in order of the plant counts in their territories; the Lead-Time Schedule takes your PO dates and gear classes and returns the energization month.
Behind the paywall: the parallel-path schedule that moves the crane from week 74 to week 54, what to order before the utility answers and on what paper, and the month-by-month diesel math that tells you whether a bridge at $167k to $520k a month beats waiting, with the run profiles in the Large-Load Cost Table workbook.