Can a power company force you to move your meter?

[MiguelT]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

I live in southern CA, and a friend of mine is doing renovations on a new commercial property that he's recently purchased. One part of fixing it up involves replacing the electrical panel that's inside the building due to the fact that it can hardly handle a microwave. I believe that this involves replacing the wiring up to the meter.

The power company has stated that if he replaces the electrical panel (edit - from a 200 amp to a 400 amp) then he has to move the meter since it's too close to his neighbor's property. The meter is on his property, but apparently they're stating that a 3 foot trench has to be dug to work on the 3" pipe that the wiring goes through and said trench would go into the neighbor's property since there are only 24" to work with as it stands now. He was told that he could either get an easement or move the meter, for the easement they said that it would be $1200 and that he must use their lawyer which sounds shady at best. Upon saying that he'd get an easement instead of paying $5-8000 for the construction to move the meter they retracted their offer of the easement. He's never received a thing in writing.

So now they've left him with only the option of moving the meter, which involves digging a trench into the street to hook into the vault located there. He's gotten the permits from the city, who are also very confused about why he'd need to do this, and is set to begin construction on Monday. I'm of the opinion that the meter is where Southern California Edison originally placed it, and as such is their liability and theirs alone. I think the they're using this as an excuse to move their ill-placed meter at someone else's expense, and their rationale that this has to be done due to a panel upgrade, whether new wiring is needed or not, is beyond me. He took what the power company said at face value since he's from out of the country and just brought it up with me last night, hopefully it's a scam by the electrical company that can still be averted.

Thanks very much for your time, it's immeasurably appreciated!

 

[Mass_Shyster]

I'm of the opinion that the meter is where Southern California Edison originally placed it, and as such is their liability and theirs alone.

The meter that belongs to Southern Cal Ed is in the box owned by your friend. The box is what needs to be moved. Once that is done, the meter is installed into the box.

 

[MiguelT]

The meter that belongs to Southern Cal Ed is in the box owned by your friend. The box is what needs to be moved. Once that is done, the meter is installed into the box.

Good point, so the actual box isn't their liability. I'm still very confused as to how they can use the replacement of an electrical panel that's inside a building, which is a fairly standard procedure, to force a digging-up-the-street move of the entire electrical meter?

 

[HappyWanderer]

If a guy doesn't want to give you something, what are you going to do?

Come on, if the electric company says they are not going to give you electricity unless you stand on your head and spin, if you want electricity, you should start spinning.

I know the electric company is a utility and has many regulations. As a general rule, I bet they've got people to oversee the rules. They're wrong sometimes, but, there is a guy who's JOB it is to look at the letter before sending it to you to KNOW the rules.

Sue, write letters or whatever you want. You will do what they say or get nothing of what they produce. It's not logical or it's not right are not an argument. ONLY it fulfills the regulations is the argument.

Do you know the regs?

 

[HuAi]

Generally everything past the meter is your responsibility, and the electric company has no input on what kind of service panel, etc you use. Only the city building department cares.

You'd need to consult with the electrician who's replacing the service panel, but from what you said it sounds to me like the current cable running from the street to the meter cannot carry 400 amps of current. The main breaker on the current panel should correspond to what the cable from the street carries, so presumably 200 amps. This makes sense since this is common amperage for residential new construction.

If that's the case, then your friend's new panel requires the electric company to put in a new run to the street, and thus a 3 ft trench. So no, they can't force you to move an existing meter, but they also cannot accomodate a larger service panel with the current setup.

I dont know how large this commercial property is, but 200 amps is sufficient to operate a large single family home running just about every modern appliance you can think of. A microwave requires a dedicated 20 amp circuit by code, and will not draw the full 20 amps even when it's running.

Depending on his needs, maybe he should reconsider doing this upgrade.

 

[FarmerJ]

Miguel have you checked to see if the electric utility offers off peak rates if there is anything you could connect that would only use power at night like heating /cooling - hot water storeage systems that will reduce your load during day time operation of your business in order to get by with your current main panel ? seriously if your using electric heat, hot water,& AC for example a considerable amount of your load during daytime business operation could be shifted to late night tied to storage systems ( example , off peak hot water has larger tank set at 160 with mixing valve on top to reduce the temperature of water at the hot line to say 115 , it runs after peak demand hours are past , then in day time when hot water is drawn mixing valve permits most of the heated water to stay in the tank so it last longer ) Other wise I agree with the others likely you will need larger new lines to handle the bigger load and yes the elect co doesnt have to pay for it and can require changes made at the time of new installs.

 

[FlyingRon]

If this is a commercial building and your buddy isn't a licensed electrician he has no business doing any of this work himself. He needs to use an electrician.

Yes, if he's going to upgrade the service they can enforce that he bring something that was grandfathered into compliance.

There's something very screwy here. 200A service should be ample for operating a microwave and a lot of lighting. We're not getting the straight dope here.