We are having our new shop wired from the main meter pole with a disconnect at the pole. It's being wired with overhead triplex
-- Because the power company is doing it --
STOP THEM and tell them you need quadplex. The bare messenger wire must be ground, not neutral, they can't hook it up like a service.
Because the (presumably breakered) main disconnect at the pole makes this a subpanel.
And this happens all the time. The Power Company follows a totally different codebook and they do things according to *their* thing, which is they don't supply ground to a **service**. However since this is after your main breaker this will be a **feeder** and you need to separate N and G. The power company never works with feeders and has no experience in our codebook.
....... Unless, your AHJ approves effectively splitting the service and having 2 main panels in 2 different buildings. Ask first, don't wait for the AHJ to show up and find it that way.
to be used with a 100 amp breaker box (that I will supply). I had 2 questions:
1. Will the breaker box need it's own grounding rod in the shop?
Yes, definitely in every case. No matter which side this flapjack lands on, you will need the standard grounding rod setup. a) an UFER ground built into the concrete pour, b) water main if metal, c) TWO 8' ground rods as far apart as you want (at least 6'), or d) One 8' ground rod if the special test says it's good enough.
This means if it's a subpanel you will need both a grounding wire and a grounding rod. That is normal/intended.
2. I am having a hard time understanding the bonding screw. In this situation would the neutral and ground bar's be bonded with the bonding screw or left separate?
If ground and neutral are delivered separately, you have a subpanel and you need to NOT have a neutral-ground equipotential bond at the subpanel. If they deliver neutral and no ground, then you have a main panels (weird) and you must bond N to G.
I dislike screws because I've seen one vaporized. (or to be more precise, *did not* see because the head remained in place). I like a nice fat ground wire between the N bar and the G bar, that I can clamp an ammeter around.
