How a Con Edison Service Upgrade Works in NYC: What to Expect

If your NYC home or small building needs more power — for an EV charger, central air, a heat pump, or just a panel that keeps tripping — odds are you'll need more than a new panel inside. You'll need Con Edison to upgrade the actual service feeding your meter. This is where a lot of homeowners get confused: the work happens in two worlds at once. Your electrician handles everything from the meter inward, and Con Edison owns the wires, the connection, and the meter itself. Here's how the two coordinate and what a real 200-amp upgrade looks like from start to finish.

Two players, two jobs

A "service upgrade" usually means raising your incoming service capacity — most commonly from 100A to 200A — so your panel actually has the power it's rated for. Swapping the panel alone doesn't accomplish that if the utility service is still sized for 100 amps.

• Your licensed electrician handles the load calculation, the new panel and meter pan, the service entrance conductors, grounding, the DOB permit, and the NYC electrical inspection.
• Con Edison owns the service line from the street, the connection to your equipment, and the meter. They inspect, connect, and energize.

Neither side can finish without the other. That's why coordination — not the physical work — is what usually drives the timeline.

How the Con Edison side actually starts

Con Edison generally doesn't take these service requests from homeowners directly. Your electrician submits a work request through Con Edison's online Project Center, and you may be asked to register as the property owner. About a week after the request goes in, you'll typically receive the name of the Con Edison team assigned to your case.

Con Edison then issues a Service Ruling and a customer service installation agreement — which they often call a "service layout." This spells out three things: what Con Edison is responsible for, what you and your electrician are responsible for, and which Con Edison specifications must be followed (point of entry, meter location, conductor sizing, and so on).

Important: per Con Edison's own guidance, your electrician's service work generally should not begin until the Service Ruling comes back. Starting early risks building something Con Edison won't approve — which means doing it twice.

Overhead vs. underground

How your service reaches the building changes the job significantly.

• Overhead service (the wire running from a pole to a mast on your roofline) is the simpler, faster path. Per Con Edison, overhead service and meters are generally energized within about 7 business days after Con Edison completes its final inspection.
• Underground service — common for newer construction, brownstone blocks, and anywhere the utility runs below grade — involves conduit, possible excavation, and street work. Con Edison advises that if your installation requires excavation, you should allow up to 90 days from the time they inspect your site.

You can also convert overhead service to underground for a cleaner look, but per Con Edison's guidance the customer pays all costs of that change, and it must be settled before their work begins. It's a real upgrade in appearance and storm resilience — just budget for it deliberately, not as an afterthought.

What a 200A upgrade looks like day-to-day

Here's the typical sequence once approvals are in place:

1. Load calculation and DOB permit. In NYC, only a licensed Master Electrician (or licensed electrical contractor) can file the permit and do the work — homeowners cannot self-permit electrical work here. A proper load calculation justifies the 200A service.
2. Con Edison coordination. Project Center request, Service Ruling, service layout agreement, and any required deposits.
3. The physical upgrade. New 200A panel, meter pan, service conductors, and updated grounding. The hands-on work is often a single day, sometimes with a short planned power-off while the service is cut over.
4. NYC electrical inspection. The work must pass a DOB electrical inspection — Con Edison won't energize the new service until that's done.
5. Con Edison final connection. Con Ed performs its own final inspection, then connects, re-seals, and energizes the meter. By Con Edison's estimate, a new meter averages about 10 days after they have all required deposits and applications and have completed their final inspection.

The takeaway: the wrench time is short, but the permit, ruling, and inspection steps stretch the calendar. A well-run overhead 200A job can move in a few weeks; underground or excavation work can run considerably longer.

A clean upgrade depends on getting the paperwork and Con Edison coordination right the first time — not just the panel swap. If you're weighing a 200-amp panel upgrade in Brooklyn or anywhere across the five boroughs, Chazon Electric handles the load calc, the DOB filing, the inspection, and the Con Edison coordination end to end. Call us at (718) 924-8062 to talk through what your service actually needs.