A load center is used in residential and light commercial applications to distribute electricity supplied by the utility company throughout the home or building to feed all the branch circuits.
Every building and home utilizes electricity for lighting, receptacles, and appliance loads. A load center is used in residential and light commercial applications to distribute electricity supplied by the utility company throughout the home or building to feed all the branch circuits.
Each branch circuit is protected by the circuit breaker housed in the load center. In the event of a short circuit or an overload on a branch circuit, the circuit breaker will cut the power before any potential property damage or personal injury can occur.
Load centers are designed, manufactured, and tested in accordance with the latest applicable standards including:
A load center helps to provide safety to the homeowner, and maintenance personnel by housing all the branch circuits in one enclosure, helping to prevent coming in contact with energized electrical parts.
Load centers use plug-on circuit breakers to reliably distribute the electricity to circuits throughout a home or small building. Plug-on, refers to how the circuit breaker connects to the bus bar of the load center. The load center can provide safety from ground and arc faults by using specialty, or electronic circuit breakers.
Load centers have been called different names over the years. For example, a fuse box, breaker box, panelboard or a distribution panel. Historically, homes used fuse panels to distribute power, but today load centers with enclosed circuit breakers are the industry standard.
Residential single family
Typically have one or more load centers to distribute power inside the home. Commonly located in the garage, basement or outdoors depending on the geography.
Residential multi-family
Apartments, condominiums and townhomes are most common for the use of a load center to distribute power. Commonly installed within group metering products.
Light commercial
Load centers provide power distribution in light commercial buildings such as strip malls, office buildings, and warehouses.
Renovation
Load centers can also be used to upgrade and replace older distribution equipment.
Original equipment (OEM)
Machinery OEMs use load centers as a means to distribute power in their electrical systems.
Service entrance or main breaker panel
Sub panel or main lug only
Replacing the outdated electrical infrastructure in an older home or an apartment can sometimes mean opening walls, re-routing wires and remediation. Learn how a homeowner replaced an outdated panel with a new custom loadcenter built to their home’s specifics that minimized time, rework and costs.
Eaton’s Residential Flex Center helps homeowner replace aging loadcenter with limited rework