I have been in the electrical design/build business for over 35 years. I have been involved with every type of project from power plants to chemical plants and all types of commercial buildings. In the 60's and 70's copper was just as more costly as aluminum then as it is now. If I value-engineered a project as the electrical contractor, substituting aluminum for copper was usually railed by the design engineer. The material itself (if used in a proper application) wasn't the problem, it was always the connections. Bus bar connections weren't an issue usually, but cable terminations were. Many contractors did not properly terminate aluminum cables, and problems were sure to result from corrosion and flow of the Al material from a bolted type of termination. If maintenance was performed routinely to torque the lugs, that would alleviate the problem, but how often did that happen? With the advent and wider useage of hy-press type compression connections, the Al termination problem was pretty well eliminated.
My analogy I give to owners/engineers who think Al is not safe is to illustrate what the utilities use to generate and transmit power from their facility. Virtually without exception, the utilities use aluminum cable, wire, bus bars, generator windings etc. in all of their generating, transmision lines, and tranformers. The only copper one might see in their systems is in smaller power cables and control cables. So the utility, which is very concerned about not only cost but maintainablitiy might use Al in not only generating your power but transmitting it perhaps hundreds of miles to a customer, and the customer might be worried about using Al for the last 100 or 200 ft. or in his switchgear. Of course the electrical system needs to be installed properly by a qualified contractor, and some maintenance needs to be performed on it like any other critcal building system. Bob
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