Wiring size for 100amp sub panel

First, are you sure that 30A is a sufficiently large breaker for your range circuit? Most electric cooking appliances (freestanding electric ranges, cooktop/oven combinations) require a 40A or a 50A circuit.

The 20A breakers do sound correct for the lighting and receptacle circuits, although you will need more of them, as every dwelling unit must have at least two dedicated 20A small appliance branch circuits and a 20A bathroom receptacle branch circuit; if laundry facilities are present, yet another dedicated 20A branch circuit must be provided for the laundry room outlets. You will want to use a double-pole breaker for HVAC, though: all but the very smallest HVAC appliances require a 240V circuit, and this includes packaged terminal units, even though they only draw a relatively small amount of current (<20A) compared to a conventional air conditioner.

The overall capacity of the subpanel you have on hand (100A) is more than adequate for an apartment-type dwelling unit; however, you will want to check the number of breaker slots available to you in it -- full-width slots are at a premium these days due to AFCI requirements, which makes depending on tandem breakers to fit all your circuits into your panel quite unwise.

Your #2 wire will be adequate for the feeder conductors provided it is copper and of a 75°C rated or better insulation type (such as ordinary THHN/THWN). If you are using aluminum wire, I would upsize to 1AWG -- 2AWG aluminum is marginal for 100A service, requring 90°C rated insulation in order to be at all usable in such an application.

This isn't a shopping channel, but unless money is no object, money will rear its ugly head. So I will heavily price the options, based on prices from random USA big-box stores. (and these are "by-the-foot" prices for the wire, a whole 500' spool may be cheaper.)

How deep do you want to bury this thing?

This is a factor. The expensive rigid conduit only needs 6" deep burial, the cheap PVC conduit needs 18". You can (in some sizes) buy direct-burial wire that must be buried 24". That's a lot of trenching for 350', consider the cost difference there. The cost of conduit also interlocks with the thickness of wire, as smaller wires need smaller conduit. As some examples of cost for conduit alone:

• $300 -- 2" PVC conduit legal to bury 18" deep
• $1400 -- 2" RMC conduit legal to bury 6" deep
• $1200 -- 1-1/2" RMC conduit legal for 6" deep (barely worth the savings)
• $500 -- 3/4" RMC conduit legal for 6" deep

Before you rush to use the minimum size conduit, price the next larger size. This will make wire pulling a lot easier, which means you are less likely to get stuck and need to call an electrician for the pull.

Do you really need copper? How big a deal is voltage drop?

People often go to copper by default, or because of "problems they hear about". That was never an issue for large cables like this. The fact is, large-wire lugs are made of aluminum. The cost of copper is insane, and nobody buys direct burial cable in it, anyone splurging for Cu also splurges for conduit. I'll price both ways and add conduit to the Cu pricing.

Voltage drop: Realistically your RV will rarely use 30A and almost never use 50A. The "conventional wisdom" is to size for 3% voltage drop of your realistic usage (30-50A). However some people nonetheless spec wire for 3% voltage at absolute max current capacity (100A). Your call. Assuming the latter:

• $3600 -- copper 2/0 conductors (#1 ground) in 2" PVC conduit (buried 18")
• $1340 -- aluminum 4/0-4/0-4/0-2/0 MH feeder cable (direct buried 24")
• $1700 -- aluminum 4/0 conductors (2/0 ground) in 2" PVC conduit (buried 18")
• add $1100 if you'd rather bury rigid conduit 6".

Size voltage drop for actual use

Now if you want to size for 3% at 50 amps, and 6% at absolute max 100A - so a 7V drop on a 120V circuit - you can save some coin. Unfortunately I could not find direct burial cable in these sizes, they would expect you to bump up to the above sizes, or use conduit. So we shall.

• $2750 -- copper #1 (#3 ground) in 2" PVC conduit (18" burial)
• $1400 -- aluminum #1/0 (#1 ground) in 2" PVC conduit (18" burial)
• add $900 if you want to use Rigid conduit buried 6" deep.

Transformers

When you increase voltage, transmission losses drop dramatically. Just for chuckles, let's look at using transformers to kick up the long-haul transmission voltage to 480V. Now you want 240V at 100A, which is 24,000 watts, or 24 KVA. 24 KVA is 50 amps at 480 volts. To contain voltage drop within 3.3 percent, you'd use

• $560 -- #6 copper direct-burial UF-B cable (buried 24")
• $500 -- two copper #6 wires in 3/4" PVC conduit (buried 18")
• add $500 for rigid conduit buried 6".

25 KVA is a common transformer size. With aggressive shopping/deal-hunting, you can find 25 KVA 480V transformers for $300-400 each. With two of those, the total bumps to $1100-1800. Much as I love to throw this option in, this one is a wobbler - is the slightly lower cost worth the added complexity? On the other hand, it sure makes the wires and conduit small!

Keep in mind you are not running neutral or ground, in fact, your two 480V wires are entirely isolated from the electrical system at both ends. This isolation causes your remote site to be separately derived service, thus a *main service" and the panel there will be a main panel.