When a building runs out of capacity — new equipment, a new tenant, a panel nobody makes parts for anymore — the fix starts at the service. Arizona Electrical Solutions engineers and self-performs commercial panel, switchboard, and service-entrance upgrades across Tucson, including the load calculations, the utility coordination, and the shutdown planning that keeps the building open. Request a bid →
Panel & Service Upgrades
A commercial panel upgrade is rarely just a panel. Increasing capacity means re-checking the load, the feeder, the service entrance, the metering, and the working clearances around every piece of gear that changes — then getting the new equipment in without taking the building down for a week. We do that work under our CR-11 electrical license with our own electricians, and our in-house engineering produces the calculations and drawings plan review asks for.
This is one slice of the broader service & distribution scope we self-perform — from the utility point of connection through the last branch circuit.
Homeowner? Start with the Residential Project Estimator: pick the job, add photos of your panel and meter, and get an itemized budget range from our cost model before anyone comes out — a range contingent on the site visit, not a quote.
Replacing obsolete or full panelboards, adding subpanels for new equipment and tenant space, re-feeding existing loads, and rebuilding the panel directory so the next electrician isn't guessing. Working clearance per NEC 110.26 gets designed in, not discovered at inspection.
Service & distribution scope →Main switchboards, distribution sections, and switchgear replaced or extended — with breaker coordination, ratings verified against available fault current, and new arc-flash labeling reflecting the system as rebuilt.
Arc flash & coordination →Larger services, new CT cabinets and meter sockets, upgraded service conductors, and pad-mounted transformer coordination — built to the utility's construction standards and inspected by the AHJ before energization.
TEP new service guide →Scoping It
Every upgrade prices differently, and the biggest variables usually have nothing to do with the panel itself. These are the ones that move the number:
The load calculation decides whether this is a panel swap or a full service upgrade. We calculate the connected and demand load against what you have and what you are adding, so you buy the capacity the building needs — not a round number somebody guessed at.
Switchgear, switchboards, and larger panelboards are made to order, and lead times have been the long pole on commercial electrical projects for several years. We price and release gear early, and we design around what is actually available when the schedule is tight.
A changeover that can happen on a Saturday night costs differently than one that has to be split across four evenings with temporary feeds. We plan the outage with your operations team first, because it drives crew size, sequence, and cost.
A service upgrade can pull in a new meter can, a transformer change, trenching for a new service lateral, grounding upgrades, and updated arc-flash labels. We identify that scope during design instead of writing change orders for it later.
Occupied Buildings
Most of the panel and service upgrades we do are in buildings that are still operating — offices, clinics, warehouses, retail, and public facilities that cannot simply close for the week. The work gets phased: temporary feeds where they are warranted, circuits moved in groups, and the main changeover scheduled for the window that costs your operation the least.
Our crews work Monday through Friday on a normal schedule and move to nights and weekends when the outage requires it. The sequence is written before anyone opens a panel, and your facility team gets it in advance.
Engineering & Utility
Anything that touches the service touches the utility. We handle the Tucson Electric Power or Trico application, the service-entrance details their construction standards require, the metering location and CT arrangement, and the inspection sequence that has to happen before they will energize. We keep a TEP standards reference hub and a plain-language TEP new service requirements guide because we deal with this weekly.
The load calculations, one-lines, and permit drawings come from our own in-house electrical engineering, and where a jurisdiction or project requires sealed drawings, we coordinate them.
Self-Performed
We do not hand the design to one firm, the gear to a second, and the trench to a third. Engineering, electrical, and underground are all in-house, which is why the schedule holds.
Rigging, setting, terminating, and torquing to the manufacturer's values — then testing before it carries load. Our electricians do the work our engineers drew.
When the upgrade needs a bigger lateral or a new transformer pad, the trench, the duct, and the pad are ours too — under our KA engineering license, with our own equipment.
FAQ
The usual signals are practical ones: no spare breaker spaces left, a panel that trips under normal load, gear so old that parts are obsolete, a tenant or piece of equipment the building can't feed, or an insurance or code issue flagged on inspection. There is also a records check you can run yourself in about ten seconds: a service upgrade is permitted and inspected work, so if nothing has been permitted at the address in decades, the original service is very likely still in place. Our free permit history and upgrade check reads that record for any Tucson address. A load calculation settles it either way — we measure and calculate what the building actually draws against what the service can carry, and tell you whether you need a new service or just a better-organized one.
Check the permit record. A service or panel upgrade requires a permit and a utility disconnect, so it is one of the few jobs that almost never happens off the books. Our free permit history lookup pulls the City of Tucson record for any address and shows the last permitted panel upgrade, HVAC changeout and water heater, along with the year the building went up. Two caveats worth knowing: the online record only goes back to 1997, and plenty of work does get done without a permit — so a blank record means nobody filed, not that nothing was done.
Yes — most of our upgrades happen in operating buildings. We phase the work, install temporary feeds where loads cannot drop, and schedule the main changeover for nights or weekends when business hours won't allow it. Egress and life-safety circuits stay live and compliant throughout.
Longer than most owners expect. Switchgear, switchboards, and larger panelboards are built to order, and lead times have been the schedule driver on commercial electrical work for several years. We price and release equipment as early in the project as possible, and where the schedule is tight, we design around what is actually available.
Yes. We coordinate the utility application and design with Tucson Electric Power or Trico, build the service entrance and metering to their construction standards, and sequence the AHJ inspection that has to clear before they energize. Our plain-language guide to TEP new service requirements walks through the process.
Almost always, for anything that changes the service or the distribution. Our in-house electrical engineering produces the load calculations, one-line, and permit-ready drawings for City of Tucson, Pima County, or whichever AHJ has jurisdiction — and where the project or jurisdiction requires sealed drawings, we coordinate them.
It should. Replacing gear or changing the service changes available fault current and clearing times, which changes incident energy — so the old labels no longer describe the system. We run or update the study and apply labels that match what is actually installed.
It depends on four drivers: the service size and gear type (a 200 A panelboard swap and a 1,200 A switchboard replacement are different projects), whether the utility service and metering change with it, how much of the work must happen off-hours to keep the building running, and equipment lead times. We don't quote from a rate sheet — send us a photo of the panel and your utility bill, and we'll come back with a scoped, line-item bid.
Related Services
One contractor carries the whole scope. See every service we self-perform.
Service entrance, switchgear, panelboards, transformers, feeders, and standby power.
Short-circuit, coordination, and arc-flash analysis with labels and corrections.
Generator sets, automatic transfer switches, emergency circuits, pads, and conduit — commissioned under load.
Trenching, duct banks, utility work, and site prep with an owned Cat fleet.
Send us a photo of the panel, your utility bill, or the equipment you're adding. We'll run the load calculation and come back with a scoped, line-item bid.
Request a Bid Call (520) 308-6235