Subpanel or separate service for your ADU, with PG&E metering and building-department permitting coordinated.
An ADU gets power one of two ways: a subpanel fed from the main house service, or its own PG&E-metered service. Which one applies to your project is settled by two things — how much capacity your existing service actually has once both dwellings are counted, and what the building department will approve. It is not purely a preference, and it is worth settling on paper before the drawings are final.
The subpanel path is the simpler one when the existing service has the headroom. A feeder runs from the main service to the ADU, sized from a load calculation that covers the main dwelling and the ADU together. For a detached unit that feeder is normally trenched underground; for an attached ADU or a JADU inside the existing footprint it is a much shorter run. The ADU gets its own subpanel, its own branch circuits, and — where it is a separate structure — its own grounding electrode system and a disconnecting means at the building. One meter means one PG&E bill, which matters if you are planning to rent the unit and want the tenant billed separately.
The separate-service path means a second full electrical service: its own meter, its own PG&E account, its own service point. That brings a PG&E service application, a service-point determination made by the utility rather than by you, new service equipment, and usually trenching or a new drop. It is a bigger scope than a subpanel and it costs more. It is the right answer when the existing service genuinely cannot carry both dwellings and upgrading it is not the better use of the money, or when separate billing is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have.
Permitting goes to one of five places, and it depends on the address rather than the neighbourhood name. Santa Cruz, Capitola, Scotts Valley, and Watsonville run their own building departments. Everywhere else in the county — Aptos, Soquel, Live Oak, Pleasure Point, Felton, Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek, Corralitos, Davenport and the rest — is unincorporated County. We pull the electrical permit either way, and on most ADU projects our scope coordinates into the building permit your general contractor holds. On scope: Sunrise holds a CSLB C-10 (Electrical) licence, #C10-1097237, and owns the electrical work. If the ADU has a heat pump, we run the circuit and the disconnect while your HVAC contractor sets the equipment — that is C-20 work. Older county homes were not wired with a second dwelling in mind, and that awkward existing-conditions work is what we are built for.
A tech walks the main service, the ADU site, and the likely feeder route, then runs the load calculation on your real numbers and sends a written report and a quote. If the honest answer is that the main service has to be upgraded before the ADU can be fed, you hear that at this stage rather than mid-build.
We settle subpanel versus separate service with you, size the feeder, and submit the electrical scope to the city or County building department. Where the ADU is getting its own meter, this is also when the PG&E service application goes in.
Feeder trenched and run, subpanel or new service equipment set, ADU branch circuits pulled and terminated, grounding and bonding completed. On a separate service, PG&E's connection is scheduled against our inspection sign-off rather than the other way round.
Building-department inspection, then we walk you and your builder through the panel, label every breaker, register the 20-year warranty, and hand over the permit number and the signed-off inspection record.
Two things move an ADU electrical quote more than anything else: which path you are on, and how far the ADU sits from the existing service. A subpanel on an attached unit a few steps from the main panel and a separately metered service on a detached unit at the back of a hillside lot are not the same job, and a single mid-range number would mislead you in both directions. The variable worth resolving earliest is capacity. Run the Panel Load Calculator for a first read, or have a tech verify it in person — because if the existing service cannot carry both dwellings, a 200A service upgrade becomes part of the project, and that belongs in the budget from the start rather than arriving as a surprise partway through the build.
“Thank you to the Sunrise Electrical Contracting team for updating the new main electrical system on my mom's home after the storm damaged the power lines and home equipment this winter… They replaced Main Service Upgrade Overhead, and added a Sub-Panel Install/Replacement Outdoors… the team of Branden, Jimmy, Ian, and Tylor worked long hours during the storm for a few days to get us up and running again before the next storm arrived.”
Pulled from what we actually hear on quotes and on-site. If yours isn't here, ask us — we'll answer in plain English.
We'd rather you get the right outcome than the Sunrise outcome. Some of this points away from us on purpose.
Look for a CSLB-licensed C-10 contractor near you and verify the licence at cslb.ca.gov. Ask for general liability and workers-comp proof, and ask specifically whether they have done ADU feeders and separately metered services before — it is a different coordination problem than a straight panel swap. The work should always include a permit and a building-department inspection.
Browse our field guidesThe electrical decisions that cost the most on an ADU get made before anything is built. Our panel and capacity guides cover the load question and the service question, free to read, no email wall.
Read the panel guidesA free on-site inspection gets you a real load calculation and a written report on what your existing service can and cannot take. You keep the report either way, whether or not you hire us.
Schedule a free inspectionFrom Davenport to Pajaro Dunes, San Lorenzo Valley to Pleasure Point. Same crew, same warranty, same pricing.
Free on-site inspection, a load calculation on your actual service, and a written quote. No pressure to book anything on the spot.