FIELD NOTE · SUPPLEMENTAL SET
Thirty business days, or a hundred and twenty-five: the service upgrade you quoted by reflex
ISSUEDJULY 11, 2026DRAWN BY THE NIGHTLY SWEEP
The load calculation is the easy part. It always is. What decides whether you keep the job is which calculation the plan checker will accept, and in Los Angeles the published form takes one of them.
Start with the number that ends conversations. A homeowner asks about a Level 2 charger, the estimator quotes a service upgrade, and the job dies at the kitchen table. If that quote goes out before anyone runs an existing-dwelling calculation, the order is backwards.
NEC 220.83 is the existing-dwelling method. Under 220.83(A), where no additional air conditioning or electric space heating is going in, the demand load is the first 8 kVA at 100 percent plus 40 percent of the remainder. You build the load out of general lighting at 3 VA per square foot, 1,500 VA per 20-amp small-appliance and laundry branch circuit, and the nameplate VA of the permanently connected appliances and motors. The remainder counts at 40 percent. Run it before you price a panel.
The calculated load is 125 percent of that maximum demand plus the new load. So the wait is a month of metering. The file you hand plan check is measured rather than assumed.
Then the new one. NEC 220.70 covers an energy management system that limits current to a feeder or service in accordance with 750.30. A single value equal to the maximum ampere setpoint goes into the calculation. That setpoint counts as a continuous load.
Read the second half of that. The service still has to carry the setpoint. Nothing here manufactures ampacity. It caps draw and lets you write the cap down as the number.
What you had instead was 625.42. It requires EVSE to be rated for the load it serves and treats charging as continuous. Then it permits the service and feeder to be sized to a reduced value where controls limit the installation's overall rating. That's an energy management system per 750.30 under 625.42(A), or, under 625.42(B), equipment with an ampere adjustment means that has restricted access and complies with 750.30(C).
The second path carries three requirements. The equipment has to be listed under Article 750 and it has to comply with 750.30(C). Access to the adjustment has to be restricted, and the adjusted rating has to be shown on a durable label. The 2023 revision dropped the older restriction confining adjustable EVSE to fixed-in-place equipment.
Then HVAC and oven. An electric range at 8,000 VA or nameplate, a dryer at 5,000 VA minimum, and a line reading Electric Vehicle Charger at nameplate.
No 220.83 path on it. No 220.87 path. No line for an energy management system anywhere.
That form predates 220.70 by seven years. Somebody at the department owns the revision cycle and hasn't run it since 2016. A method the code permits still has to survive a worksheet that doesn't contemplate it, and whether yours clears is an AHJ call. Nobody can tell you from the drawings.
Permitting the charger itself is the fast part, on paper, and the fastest version isn't a City job at all. Under the 2020 County of Los Angeles Electrical Code, Article 85, Section 85-4, EVSE and associated equipment rated under 400 amps needs no electrical plan check. That permit issues over the counter at a County Public Works district office. Different code, different department, so it does nothing for the LADBS job holding the 2016 worksheet.
Statewide it's Government Code 65850.71. An application for 25 or fewer charging stations is deemed complete 5 business days after submittal. The locality then gets 20 business days to act, and it's deemed approved if the locality doesn't.
The Attorney General's Legal Alert OAG 2025-01, dated March 18, 2025, counted 341 localities that had implemented streamlining as of December 1, 2024. Another 85 had done it partially and 114 not at all. The same alert names timelines far exceeding the streamlining laws as one of the common failures among the localities that did streamline.
Where this gets argued is the setpoint. Set it low enough that the worksheet clears comfortably, and the car charges slower than the homeowner expected. Headroom on paper is a charging rate in the driveway. Panel and EV permits also get read as buying signals, which is a different use for the same filings.
That one is worth sitting with, because the reflex is to blame the checker. Sometimes the rejection is right. A setpoint chosen to make a worksheet clear is a design decision, and a service that can't do better than that was undersized for what the customer was sold. The counter is the easiest place to look and it isn't always where the fault is.
Southern California Edison published its targets in January 2025. Main panel upgrade work fully under SCE's control: average 30 business days, maximum 45. Application decision: average 10 business days, maximum 45. The energization clock starts only when SCE notifies you the application is deemed complete.
Rule 16 is where the calendar changes character, and you land there if the job needs front-of-meter work. SCE's table carries that row at 125 business days average and 230 maximum, and at 182 and 335 calendar days. D.24-09-020 is the CPUC decision that set the targets.
20 BUSINESS DAYS FOR THE LOCALITY TO ACT, GOV. CODE 65850.71, THEN DEEMED APPROVED 30 SCE AVERAGE ON PANEL UPGRADE WORK IT CONTROLS, JANUARY 2025 TARGETS 125 SCE AVERAGE ONCE RULE 16 FRONT-OF-METER WORK IS INVOLVED, CPUC D.24-09-020
SCE's second biannual energization report, filed September 30, 2025, counts 83,078 main panel upgrade projects between January 31, 2023 and June 30, 2025. That's 75 percent of its energization projects. Completed: 27,197, or 33 percent. Still in flight: 52,010, or 62 percent. SCE says in the same filing it can't compare its Rule 15, 16 and 29 timelines against the CPUC targets, because its systems can't separate its own time from the customer's.
The November 2025 CPUC assessment of PG&E's biannual report, prepared by EY, put numbers on the other territory. Main panel upgrades averaged 34 PG&E business days and 40 end to end, across 27,742 projects. Only 71 percent of completed jobs landed under the maximum. Rule 16 went 118 PG&E calendar days and 307 end to end.
D.24-09-020 doesn't reach LADWP at all. It's a municipal utility, rates set by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners and adopted by City Council ordinance. Those targets bind PG&E, SCE and SDG&E, and stop at the city line. On a Los Angeles job you're quoting a schedule nobody has published.
Which is the situation. The arithmetic takes an afternoon and the 30-day recording under 220.87 takes a month. Rule 16's average target is 182 calendar days from the energization request, and that clock doesn't start until SCE deems the application complete. The gap shows up whenever a service question gets priced before it gets calculated, which is what an electrical contractor walks into on a charger call.
The 2025 California Electrical Code took effect January 1, 2026. The LADBS worksheet is still dated 2016.Charging connector at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. Photo by Al Pavangkanan CC BY 2.0
Start with the number that ends conversations. A homeowner asks about a Level 2 charger, the estimator quotes a service upgrade, and the job dies at the kitchen table. If that quote goes out before anyone runs an existing-dwelling calculation, the order is backwards.
NEC 220.83 is the existing-dwelling method. Under 220.83(A), where no additional air conditioning or electric space heating is going in, the demand load is the first 8 kVA at 100 percent plus 40 percent of the remainder. You build the load out of general lighting at 3 VA per square foot, 1,500 VA per 20-amp small-appliance and laundry branch circuit, and the nameplate VA of the permanently connected appliances and motors. The remainder counts at 40 percent. Run it before you price a panel.
A month of metering beats a service upgrade
There's a second method, and it's better when the house has history. NEC 220.87 works from actual maximum demand. One year of available maximum demand data does it. Without that, you record continuously for a minimum 30-day period, capturing the highest average kilowatts sustained across a 15-minute interval, taken while the place is occupied and including the larger of the heating or the cooling load.The calculated load is 125 percent of that maximum demand plus the new load. So the wait is a month of metering. The file you hand plan check is measured rather than assumed.
Then the new one. NEC 220.70 covers an energy management system that limits current to a feeder or service in accordance with 750.30. A single value equal to the maximum ampere setpoint goes into the calculation. That setpoint counts as a continuous load.
Read the second half of that. The service still has to carry the setpoint. Nothing here manufactures ampacity. It caps draw and lets you write the cap down as the number.
The rule is about six months old in California
220.70 does not appear in the 2020 NEC. It's new in the 2023 edition. The 2025 California Electrical Code is based on that edition, published July 1, 2025, effective January 1, 2026. Before that, California ran the 2022 edition, in force since January 1, 2023, and no general service-level setpoint rule was in it.What you had instead was 625.42. It requires EVSE to be rated for the load it serves and treats charging as continuous. Then it permits the service and feeder to be sized to a reduced value where controls limit the installation's overall rating. That's an energy management system per 750.30 under 625.42(A), or, under 625.42(B), equipment with an ampere adjustment means that has restricted access and complies with 750.30(C).
The second path carries three requirements. The equipment has to be listed under Article 750 and it has to comply with 750.30(C). Access to the adjustment has to be restricted, and the adjusted rating has to be shown on a durable label. The 2023 revision dropped the older restriction confining adjustable EVSE to fixed-in-place equipment.
The worksheet LADBS publishes is dated 2016
The code and the counter part company at the worksheet. LADBS publishes a load-calculation form for single-family EV charger work, titled NEC Standard Electrical Load Calculation, Rev. 03-23-2016, service ratings 120/240V and 225 amps maximum. It's a standard-method worksheet: 3 VA per square foot per Table 220.12, 1,500 VA per small-appliance and laundry circuit, the first 3,000 VA at 100 percent and the remainder at 35 percent per 220.42, four or more fixed appliances at 75 percent per 220.53, and 25 percent of the largest motor per NEC 430.24 on line 16.Then HVAC and oven. An electric range at 8,000 VA or nameplate, a dryer at 5,000 VA minimum, and a line reading Electric Vehicle Charger at nameplate.
No 220.83 path on it. No 220.87 path. No line for an energy management system anywhere.
That form predates 220.70 by seven years. Somebody at the department owns the revision cycle and hasn't run it since 2016. A method the code permits still has to survive a worksheet that doesn't contemplate it, and whether yours clears is an AHJ call. Nobody can tell you from the drawings.
Permitting the charger itself is the fast part, on paper, and the fastest version isn't a City job at all. Under the 2020 County of Los Angeles Electrical Code, Article 85, Section 85-4, EVSE and associated equipment rated under 400 amps needs no electrical plan check. That permit issues over the counter at a County Public Works district office. Different code, different department, so it does nothing for the LADBS job holding the 2016 worksheet.
Statewide it's Government Code 65850.71. An application for 25 or fewer charging stations is deemed complete 5 business days after submittal. The locality then gets 20 business days to act, and it's deemed approved if the locality doesn't.
The Attorney General's Legal Alert OAG 2025-01, dated March 18, 2025, counted 341 localities that had implemented streamlining as of December 1, 2024. Another 85 had done it partially and 114 not at all. The same alert names timelines far exceeding the streamlining laws as one of the common failures among the localities that did streamline.
Where this gets argued is the setpoint. Set it low enough that the worksheet clears comfortably, and the car charges slower than the homeowner expected. Headroom on paper is a charging rate in the driveway. Panel and EV permits also get read as buying signals, which is a different use for the same filings.
That one is worth sitting with, because the reflex is to blame the checker. Sometimes the rejection is right. A setpoint chosen to make a worksheet clear is a design decision, and a service that can't do better than that was undersized for what the customer was sold. The counter is the easiest place to look and it isn't always where the fault is.
Thirty business days is a target
The other half of the reflex quote is the utility, and the vocabulary in that quote is wrong. A residential service upgrade is not an interconnection. CPUC Electric Rule 21 governs generating facilities, which is what a solar and storage crew files under. Load service runs on Rules 15 and 16, distribution line extensions and service line extensions, and the panel work itself sits in its own category.Southern California Edison published its targets in January 2025. Main panel upgrade work fully under SCE's control: average 30 business days, maximum 45. Application decision: average 10 business days, maximum 45. The energization clock starts only when SCE notifies you the application is deemed complete.
Rule 16 is where the calendar changes character, and you land there if the job needs front-of-meter work. SCE's table carries that row at 125 business days average and 230 maximum, and at 182 and 335 calendar days. D.24-09-020 is the CPUC decision that set the targets.
20 BUSINESS DAYS FOR THE LOCALITY TO ACT, GOV. CODE 65850.71, THEN DEEMED APPROVED 30 SCE AVERAGE ON PANEL UPGRADE WORK IT CONTROLS, JANUARY 2025 TARGETS 125 SCE AVERAGE ONCE RULE 16 FRONT-OF-METER WORK IS INVOLVED, CPUC D.24-09-020
SCE's second biannual energization report, filed September 30, 2025, counts 83,078 main panel upgrade projects between January 31, 2023 and June 30, 2025. That's 75 percent of its energization projects. Completed: 27,197, or 33 percent. Still in flight: 52,010, or 62 percent. SCE says in the same filing it can't compare its Rule 15, 16 and 29 timelines against the CPUC targets, because its systems can't separate its own time from the customer's.
The November 2025 CPUC assessment of PG&E's biannual report, prepared by EY, put numbers on the other territory. Main panel upgrades averaged 34 PG&E business days and 40 end to end, across 27,742 projects. Only 71 percent of completed jobs landed under the maximum. Rule 16 went 118 PG&E calendar days and 307 end to end.
D.24-09-020 doesn't reach LADWP at all. It's a municipal utility, rates set by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners and adopted by City Council ordinance. Those targets bind PG&E, SCE and SDG&E, and stop at the city line. On a Los Angeles job you're quoting a schedule nobody has published.
Which is the situation. The arithmetic takes an afternoon and the 30-day recording under 220.87 takes a month. Rule 16's average target is 182 calendar days from the energization request, and that clock doesn't start until SCE deems the application complete. The gap shows up whenever a service question gets priced before it gets calculated, which is what an electrical contractor walks into on a charger call.
The 2025 California Electrical Code took effect January 1, 2026. The LADBS worksheet is still dated 2016.Charging connector at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. Photo by Al Pavangkanan CC BY 2.0