We live in the SF East Bay, and are considering replacing our old (installed in 1980) electrical panels. We are in a condo and both the gas and electricity meters are in a cabinet outside the house; a subpanel with circuit breakers is located in the garage. The current ampage is 125 and we would like to upgrade to 200 amps. We do not have plans to install solar but wanted to upgrade due to the age of the unit.

I spoke with our electrician and he said that due to both meters being placed in a cabinet, which is something PG&E no longer does, we would have to build an entirely new space for both meters. The current configuration is grandfathered in and is up to code but any upgrades would require working with PG&E. He estimated a timeline for approval of 24 months, if not longer, with PG&E charging us $25,000-$35,000. Wow- we were shocked. An option would be to keep the exising panels, retorque and retighten all the connections and install new circuit breakers in both panels. Also discovered that PG&E used to have a "like to like" option to install panels with the same ampage but that seems to have been discontinued. Would love to hear from anyone who has done this recently.

Thanks