You're adding equipment to your building, and your existing panels can't carry the extra load. You can't just have an electrician hang a larger panel on the wall because the power company must approve, design, and connect the larger service before your new gear can run.
Getting a commercial utility upgrade means submitting a construction request with your electrical drawings, preparing the site for the utility's equipment, and passing a municipal inspection before the power company connects you. How you start depends on whether Tampa Electric or Duke Energy Florida serves your property, and on submitting complete load calculations and drawings as early as possible to keep your project on schedule.
Which utility serves your building
Your address determines which power company reviews your plans and sets your equipment rules. In Florida, Tampa Electric serves roughly 860,000 customers across 2,000 square miles in Hillsborough County and parts of Pinellas, Pasco, and Polk counties, while Duke Energy Florida serves neighboring areas. Both are investor-owned electric companies whose rates and revenues the Florida Public Service Commission regulates.
If you don’t have a monthly bill for the property yet, check the commission’s investor-owned utility service area map as a general guideline, then call the utility to confirm your address.
Once you confirm your provider, you need to know where their equipment stops and yours begins along the service, which is the conductors and equipment that carry utility power into your building. Under Tampa Electric’s service standards, you normally own all the service facilities on your side of the point of delivery, the exact spot where the utility’s conductors join yours, even though the utility’s meters may sit past that point.
The steps from application to reconnection
A commercial service upgrade moves through a fixed sequence from your initial request to final connection, with specific tasks for you, your electrical contractor, the utility, and your local building department. The specifics below come from Tampa Electric’s published standards, so if Duke Energy Florida serves you, confirm each requirement with it before you submit.
- You or your electrical contractor submit a construction request to Tampa Electric or your local utility to upgrade or change your existing commercial service.
- Your contractor uploads your load information, including electrical prints, panel schedules, and load calculations, to show the capacity your building needs.
- Your team sends the site plan, property survey, and construction drawings so the utility can lay out the equipment on your property.
- The utility engineers the upgraded connection and decides whether you’ll owe a customer charge for specialized, underground, or additional facilities.
- Your contractor installs your service entrance conductors, meter enclosure, and any required transformer pad to the utility’s clearance and height rules.
- Your local building department, such as the City of Tampa, conducts a final electrical inspection of the permitted work and issues an inspection approval or release.
- The utility schedules the physical connection at the point of delivery and sets the meter so your upgraded service can be energized.
What the utility needs in your load information
The utility won’t size a transformer or engineer your connection until you submit complete electrical prints and site documents that prove your demand.
What a complete load package contains
To upgrade or change any commercial service, Tampa Electric requires you to upload electrical prints with your application, specifically your riser diagram, panel schedules, and load calculations. If you’re requesting a new commercial service, you also have to include your architectural, civil, mechanical, electrical, and structural construction drawings, a geographically referenced AutoCAD file in DWG format, and a property survey with a legal description.
A commercial electrical load calculation is the math tallying the electrical demand your building’s circuits and equipment will place on the utility’s supply. In Florida, Chapter 27 of the Florida Building Code adopts the National Electrical Code (NEC), published as NFPA 70, by reference. Under NEC Article 220 (Section 220.40), which covers branch-circuit, feeder, and service loads, your calculated service load cannot be less than the sum of the loads on the branch circuits supplied after you apply any permitted or required demand factors.
Your site plan and drawings must also show where the utility’s equipment will sit on the property, including the transformer pad location and the route your service-entrance conductors will take to the point of delivery.
At Suncoast Power, we handle the administrative work from the initial load calculations to the final permit sign-off, preparing the load data your application needs. The utility asks you to apply as early as possible if you want service when you need it, so send the complete load and drawing package with your first request.
How the utility designs your new service
Once the utility receives your application and load package, it designs the distribution side of your upgrade and sets the physical rules for the equipment on your property, billing you when your request goes beyond a standard overhead installation.
When the utility charges for the work
You pay the utility for construction when your upgrade needs more than a standard overhead service. Under Tampa Electric’s Section 5 tariff, the utility reserves the right to require a contribution in aid of construction (CIAC) when the additional distribution investment is not considered prudent.
In plain terms, you cover the portion of construction costs beyond what the company normally provides for a standard service installation.
You have to pay that charge for any duplicate or additional facilities you request beyond what the utility normally furnishes, and for non-permanent structures you pay the estimated cost of the entire extension. If you’re adding new loads and want underground service, you pay the estimated cost difference between that underground installation and an equivalent overhead service. Specialized equipment or enclosures work the same way: you pay the estimated cost above a normal overhead service.
Where the meter and transformer go
Your site plan and building layout must provide the utility’s equipment with the exact elevations and open space its rules require. Under Tampa Electric’s meter and transformer standards, the pad, the meter, and the space around them have to meet these specifications:
- A pad-mounted transformer requires a pad location built to utility specifications within six inches of final grade, with your service entrance conductors brought out to the point of delivery according to code.
- Utility crews need to reach pad-mounted equipment on your property, so you have to keep the required minimum clearances open around it.
- Unless your building uses an approved meter room, every meter installation goes outdoors on a vertical wall or other solid support with an unobstructed view from the ground.
- The meter’s centerline ideally sits at five feet above the ground, with a five-foot maximum and a four-foot-six-inch minimum for commercial buildings.
- You must keep at least 15 inches of clear space from the center on either side of the meter enclosure and 48 inches of clear space in front of it at all times for reading and testing.
What happens before the power comes back on
After your contractor installs your new panels, conductors, and meter enclosure, the utility won’t connect your bigger service until the local building department inspects the work and signs off.
In the City of Tampa, any construction work that requires a permit must pass inspection and receive a final inspection approval before the service goes live. If your commercial project needs temporary power before the building gets its Certificate of Occupancy, send a written request to the city’s Construction Services Center for a release of temporary power. A release is the building department’s official authorization telling the utility it’s safe to energize the equipment.
Once the city clears the work, you coordinate the cutover with the utility. The cutover is the physical switch from your old electrical service to the new one, so plan your outage window around the utility’s connection schedule.
What your electrical contractor prepares for the utility
A licensed commercial electrical contractor prepares the load calculations, pulls the building permit, installs the customer-side gear, and coordinates the municipal inspection so you don’t have to manage the utility and building department yourself.
A permit is the local government’s official permission to perform and inspect construction work, and you can’t pull one for commercial electrical work on your own unless you hold a state license. Under Florida Statutes Chapter 489, Part II, anyone engaging in electrical contracting in the state must be certified or registered, and the permitting official has to verify the contractor’s certification or registration in the area where the construction takes place before issuing the permit.
When you hire Suncoast Power for commercial electrical construction or a commercial power distribution upgrade, we oversee the process from initial load calculations through the final electrical inspection and permit sign-off. We coordinate directly with local permitting offices and serve commercial properties as a licensed electrical contractor across Florida, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Brandon, Lakeland, Winter Haven, Orlando, Kissimmee, Apopka, and Fort Myers.
Speak to an expert at Suncoast Power about your commercial service upgrade
Nothing moves at the utility until your application, electrical prints, and load calculations are in its hands. Send your riser diagram, panel schedules, and NEC Article 220 load calculations as early as you can, because a late or incomplete package pushes your design and connection further out. The utility’s schedule decides when the cutover happens, so plan your outage window around it.
If your building needs more electrical capacity and you haven’t filed your request with the utility yet, bring in a licensed contractor before you apply. Call (813) 822-4107 or request a quote online, and Suncoast Power will put together a quote for your service upgrade. We’ll calculate your building’s load, handle the permitting, and manage the upgrade through final inspection.