Revit Electrical Equipment with 2 Feeds

If you are using Revit for electrical design, sometimes you need a piece of electrical equipment to have more than one feed but carry the same load.  A common situation for this is an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) where it is fed through both the primary electrical system and an emergency backup system powered by a generator.  Downstream panels served by the ATS will receive power from both the primary electrical system and the emergency power system.

This is possible through having 2 electrical connectors on the electrical equipment family.  Each connector can then be connected to the appropriate electrical system and show the same load.

I will use the Automatic Transfer Switch.rfa family provided with Revit only to illustrate the additional connector.  Since the  OOTB family has one electrical connector versus the 2 connectors needed to work in this way, I have added a second electrical connector to the family.

Open the family and use the Electrical Connector command from the Connectors panel of the Create tab.  Place the connector on the family.

While it is always good practice to have parameters in the family that control the parameters of the connector, it is essential in this scenario to make sure both circuits have the exact same load and electrical settings.  This is done by selecting the button to the far right of the parameter (encircled in the screenshot) in the connector’s Properties palette and selecting the desired family parameter in the Associate Family Parameter dialog box.

It is also good practice to give the connector a name so that it is easy to understand the purpose of the connector when adding it to a circuit.  In the illustration, I gave the 2nd connector a Connector Description of “Secondary Power“.  I also gave the other original connector a Connector Description of “Primary Power” since Autodesk did not give it a name.

Notes:

1. Both circuits (one for each connector) will show the full load on the circuit.  The load isn’t really doubled in the overall building electrical system since it is actually the same load that is shown going two different directions.
2. Pretty much any family can have a second electrical connector added to it in order to have this functionality.
3. It is common to add only a portion of the elevators in a large building to the backup power system and this process is a good one to accomplish that task.