Commercial Solar & EV Charging Infrastructure

Solar PV, battery storage, and EV charging for commercial sites in Tucson and across Arizona — engineered in-house and installed by our own CR-11 electrical crews, with the TEP or Trico interconnection handled from day one.

What We Provide

Solar, storage, and charging — designed and built by the same firm

Most commercial solar and EV projects pass through three hands: a developer who sells it, an engineer who stamps it, and an electrician who inherits whatever the first two agreed on. Here, the firm that designs the system installs it — which changes what gets drawn, and what gets built.

Solar PV — Rooftops & Carports

  • Commercial rooftop PV — Array layout, DC/AC system design, and conduit routing planned around the roof itself — penetrations, attachment, and the roofing warranty included.
  • Carport and canopy PV — Generation over parking, with the foundations, steel coordination, and underground feeders handled by the same company that self-performs sitework.
  • Designed for the building's power system — The PV single-line is drawn against the building's actual service and distribution, not bolted on after the fact.

Battery Energy Storage

  • Storage integration — Battery energy-storage systems for demand management, resiliency, and solar pairing, designed into the switchgear rather than around it.
  • Code and siting — Clearances, disconnecting means, and fire-code coordination worked out with the AHJ before equipment is ordered.
  • Resiliency planning — Storage scoped alongside standby power, so the owner buys one coherent backup strategy instead of two competing ones.

Utility Interconnection — TEP & Trico

  • Interconnection applications — We prepare and carry the interconnection package with Tucson Electric Power or Trico Electric Cooperative, and design to the serving utility's requirements from the first drawing.
  • Metering and point of connection — Production metering, disconnect placement, and point-of-connection details settled with the utility before construction.
  • Standards on hand — We work with these requirements daily and keep a TEP standards reference hub our own crews and other contractors use.

EV Charging & Energy Retrofits

  • Level 2 charging — Workplace, fleet, and visitor charging — panel capacity checked, circuits and pathways installed by our own electricians. Our commercial EV charging installation in Tucson page covers the full scope.
  • DC fast charging — Higher-power charging infrastructure, including the service and distribution upgrades it often triggers.
  • Load management — Managed charging that lets a site add chargers without overbuilding the service — often the difference between a panel circuit and a utility service upgrade.
  • Energy retrofits — Lighting, controls, and equipment retrofits that cut consumption and can qualify for utility incentive programs.

Where It Applies

Where this work shows up

Workplaces adding chargers for employees, fleets electrifying yard vehicles, municipal sites pairing solar with standby power, and industrial roofs big enough to make generation pencil — commercial, industrial, and public projects across Arizona.

  • Offices and workplace charging
  • Industrial and warehouse rooftops
  • Municipal and public facilities
  • Fleet yards and parking structures
  • Mixed-use development

Engineering + CR-11 Crews

Engineered here. Installed by our own electricians.

Our in-house engineers design the system and our CR-11 electrical crews (ROC #276948) build it — same company, same project manager. The single-line that goes to TEP or Trico is drawn by people who will stand in front of the gear at energization, so the design is constructable, the install matches the stamp, and there's one name on the whole thing.

Back to Electrical Engineering
  • Solar, storage, and EV designed with the building's power system
  • TEP and Trico interconnection handled in-house
  • Load management that avoids costly service upsizing
  • Installed by the firm that designed it

Battery Energy Storage

Battery storage that earns its keep on the utility bill

In TEP territory, commercial battery storage pays in a specific order: demand-charge management first, backup for critical loads second, solar self-consumption third. A system scoped in that order earns its cost on the monthly bill and delivers resilience as a bonus. Scoped backwards, it's an expensive generator that never runs long enough to matter.

Demand-charge management

Commercial rate schedules bill a significant share of the month on your single worst demand interval — and in Tucson that interval almost always lands on a summer afternoon when every rooftop unit on the building is running flat-out against 110°-plus heat. A battery that discharges through those few hours clips the peak the utility bills you for, month after month. This is the use case we model first, because it is the one your own interval data can prove before you spend anything. The same logic buffers DC fast charging, where storage can absorb short, sharp charger peaks the service would otherwise have to be upsized for.

Backup for critical loads

Monsoon season is hard on distribution feeders — microbursts, blowing dust, and lightning all take their toll. Storage scoped for backup carries the loads that genuinely cannot blink: refrigeration, network rooms, access control, process equipment. We separate those circuits into a dedicated backed-up panel so the battery isn't asked to run the whole building, and we coordinate the scope with standby generation where the outage math calls for both.

Solar self-consumption

A commercial roof generates hardest at midday; many buildings peak in the late afternoon and evening. Storage shifts midday solar into those hours, so energy the utility would credit at export rates instead offsets energy you would otherwise buy at retail. Paired with a new PV system — or added to one already on the roof — storage is the piece that makes the generation follow the building instead of the sun.

Built for the desert, not the data sheet

Battery capacity and service life are both rated at temperatures Tucson exceeds for months at a time. On every local project we work through conditioned or actively cooled enclosures, shade and orientation that keep cabinets out of the west sun, sealing and filtration for monsoon dust, and equipment pads engineered for the caliche the excavator will actually find. A storage layout copied from a milder climate loses capacity — and warranty coverage — in an Arizona summer.

Sizing: load profile first, nameplate last

We size storage from interval data — the shape, depth, and duration of your actual peaks — and from the short list of loads that must ride through an outage, not from a spec sheet's nameplate kilowatt-hours. Adding inverter-based sources also changes fault current and protective-device coordination, which is why storage design here runs alongside our arc-flash and coordination studies rather than after them.

Interconnection & code realities

A battery that operates in parallel with the grid goes through the same distributed-generation interconnection review as solar — under TEP's DGIR process, or Trico's equivalent — and the export-versus-non-export decision shapes both the review and the control scheme. On the code side: UL 9540-listed equipment, NEC Article 706 installation requirements, and fire-code separation from buildings, openings, and other units, all settled with the AHJ before anything is ordered. The working utility references live on our TEP standards hub.

Interconnection, Step by Step

How a TEP or Trico interconnection actually runs

Every grid-tied solar or storage project in the Tucson area runs the same gauntlet, whether the serving utility is Tucson Electric Power or Trico Electric Cooperative. The steps below are the process in the order it happens; the specific forms, construction standards, and DGIR references live on our TEP standards hub.

Step 1

Application

The interconnection application goes to the serving utility with the single-line diagram, site plan, and equipment listings. Accuracy here is the schedule: a package that matches the utility's checklist the first time doesn't ride the revision loop.

Step 2

Engineering review

The utility studies what your system does to its distribution — transformer capacity, fault contribution, export limits. This review, not construction, is usually the longest single line on the calendar, which is why we submit as early as design allows.

Step 3

Interconnection agreement

The executed agreement locks in the approved design, operating mode, and metering configuration. Changes after this point mean re-review, so we settle point-of-connection and disconnect details with the utility before it is signed — not after.

Step 4

Install & inspection

Our CR-11 crews build to the approved drawings and the utility's construction standards, and the AHJ electrical inspection is passed and documented before the utility is ever called to the site.

Step 5

Witness test

The utility witnesses commissioning: disconnects, protective functions, signage, and metering verified against the agreement. We schedule it, attend it, and have the paperwork on site that the field engineer will ask for.

Step 6

Permission to operate

Written PTO from the utility is the finish line — the system stays off until it arrives. Once it does, the array energizes, the meter runs, and the project moves from construction to production.

More Engineering

Related capabilities

Solar, storage, and EV work touches the rest of the power system. Start with the full electrical engineering overview, or go straight to the related scope.

FAQ

Solar, storage, and EV questions, answered

Do you install residential solar?

No. We are a commercial, industrial, institutional, and municipal contractor. Commercial rooftop, carport, and ground systems, storage, and EV charging are our work; residential rooftop solar is a different market with different economics.

Do you handle the TEP or Trico interconnection?

Yes. We run the interconnection application and design coordination, build the service and metering to the utility's construction standards, and schedule and attend the inspection and witness testing required before the system can operate. We keep a TEP standards reference hub because we deal with these requirements weekly.

What is TEP's DGIR, and does it apply to my project?

The DGIR is Tucson Electric Power's set of interconnection requirements for distributed generation — the rules any solar or battery system operating in parallel with TEP's grid is designed, reviewed, and tested against. If your system can run in parallel with the utility, it applies; Trico runs its own equivalent process for its cooperative territory. We keep the working references on our TEP standards hub and design to them from the first drawing.

How long does a commercial solar project take?

The construction is usually the shorter half. Utility interconnection review, permitting, and approval to operate frequently drive the calendar more than procurement or installation do, which is why we start the utility process as early as the design allows.

Should we add battery storage?

It depends on your rate structure and load profile. Storage earns its cost by shaving peak demand, shifting energy, or backing up critical loads — sometimes all three. We look at your actual usage before recommending it, rather than selling batteries by default.

How do you size a commercial battery system?

From your load profile, not the battery's nameplate. We start with utility interval data — how deep and how long your demand peaks actually run — and the short list of loads that genuinely must ride through an outage. Those two numbers set the power and energy ratings; the spec sheet comes last. A battery sized from a brochure is usually too big for the bill savings and too small for the backup.

What safety codes apply to commercial battery storage?

The core requirements are UL 9540 listing for the storage system itself, UL 9540A fire-test data where the fire code asks for it, NEC Article 706 for the electrical installation, and fire-code separation rules governing where units can sit relative to buildings, openings, and each other. We settle those clearances with the fire authority before equipment is ordered — relocating a battery after the pad is poured is nobody's idea of value engineering.

Are there incentives or tax credits for commercial solar in Arizona?

Incentive programs and federal tax provisions exist and change. We confirm current utility offerings during design and provide the documentation a claim requires — but the tax treatment of your project is a question for your CPA or tax advisor, not your electrical contractor.

Does battery storage qualify for the federal investment tax credit?

Federal credit provisions cover commercial energy storage as well as solar, and utility incentives are sometimes available on top — but values, eligibility rules, and documentation requirements change with legislation and program cycles. We provide the equipment listings and cost documentation a claim requires; confirm the current credit values and your project's eligibility with your CPA or tax advisor before counting them in the budget, then request a bid for hard numbers on the construction side.

Can you install EV chargers as part of the same project?

Yes, and it is usually cheaper to do it at the same time. We are a Tesla Certified Installer for EV charging equipment, and chargers, solar, and site lighting frequently share the same service capacity and the same trench — see commercial EV charging.

Adding solar, storage, or chargers to a commercial site?

Send us the site plan, the utility bill, or just the goal. We'll check the service capacity and the interconnection path before anyone draws panels on a roof.

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