Studio City, CA · December 2022 – August 2023 · LADWP / LADBS

Two dwellings on one lot. Two of everything on the paperwork.

The old house and garage came down, a new two-story house went up with a detached accessory dwelling behind it, and each building got its own meter, its own work request and its own fee. Both were switched on the same day.

This lot was metered as two services: the house and the accessory dwelling each had a meter of its own. Where that is the case, each meter needs its own interconnection request with its own charge, even when one crew installs both arrays in the same week. So the first question on a two-dwelling lot is not how big the arrays are, it is how many meters there are. The site work merges. The paperwork follows the meters.

At a glance

Lot

New house and a detached ADU

Work requests

Two, filed the same day

Recorded by the utility

2.32 kW and 1.45 kW

Modules

Silfab

Meters

Two, side by side on one wall

Filing to permission

Sixty days, both

Meter work

Existing meters changed for net meters

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

This lot was cleared before any of it began. The existing house, an accessory structure and the garage were demolished under one permit, the old pool was backfilled and the shell taken out, and what went up in their place was a new two-story dwelling with an attached two-car garage, plus a detached accessory dwelling unit at the back.

Two dwellings on one piece of land. That sentence is the whole design problem, and not for the reason people expect. The arrays are small and the roofs are ordinary. What doubles is the paperwork.

Here each building had a service and a meter of its own, and that is what decided the paperwork. An interconnection request attaches to a meter, so two meters meant two of everything: two work requests filed on the same day, two expenditure recovery charges paid two days later, two site evaluations, two building department releases and two grants of permission to operate — for arrays the utility recorded at 2.32 and 1.45 kilowatts. A second dwelling fed from the main house on one meter is a different job, and worth establishing before anybody quotes.

That is worth knowing before you budget an accessory dwelling unit. The modules and the labor scale with the roof; the filing scales with the number of meters. Two small arrays on two services carry two applications and two charges, and that pair of charges is the line people leave out of the budget.

Now the part that is specific to a house somebody builds to sell rather than to live in. On an owner-occupied job the person who knows what is happening on site is the person paying the bill, and they tell you. On a development there is an office, a general contractor, subcontractors and a solar installer, and information travels between them at whatever speed somebody remembers to send an email.

At the end of June the developer's office wrote to say a meter had been installed at the property by the utility, adding that they had only just worked out that this was something we needed to know. That is not carelessness so much as the ordinary shape of a job with four companies on it. But it mattered here, because until an ordinary meter exists there is nothing for the utility to change into a net meter — and because the system could not be commissioned until the metering was actually in place.

We went out the next morning to photograph the installation for the application. The gate was locked and nobody on site had been told to expect us, which cost an hour and two phone calls. Both of those are worth building into a schedule on a development: access is somebody else's decision, and that somebody is rarely the person who booked you.

Once filed, the utility side moved quickly. The requests went in on the first of July and the fees on the third; five days after filing, the review, the confirmation and the site evaluation all landed on the same day for both dwellings. The building department's final release came in the middle of August, and permission to operate for both buildings arrived on the thirtieth — the same day the net meters went on. Sixty days from filing on each.

One detail from the permission notice is worth reading if you are buying a newly built house with solar on it. The work type is recorded as a change: an existing meter was taken off and a net meter put on in its place. A new building gets an ordinary meter first so the site has power during construction, and the solar meter replaces it at the end. If somebody tells you a new house is already solar-ready, that is the step to ask about.

And if there are two dwellings, ask for both sets of numbers. Two buildings on one lot means two meters, two accounts and two interconnection records, and they do not have to be the same size or even switched on in the same month. Here they were. That was a choice somebody made, not a rule.

How it ran

Sixty days from filing to permission, on both dwellings at once.

What we did

• Filed a separate interconnection request for each dwelling on the same day.
• Installed both arrays on a lot that was still an active construction site.
• Photographed the installation for the application when the developer reported the meter was in.
• Carried both work requests from filing to permission to operate in sixty days.
• Left two meters and two sets of solar labeling on one wall, one per dwelling.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• You are building a second dwelling and want to know what doubles.
• You are a developer and solar is one of four trades on your site.
• You are buying a newly built house that already has an array on it.
• Your lot has two meters and you do not know which serves what.
• You want the accessory dwelling connected in its own right, not off the house.

Cali Energy in Studio City

Frequently asked questions

Does an ADU need its own interconnection?

If it has its own service and its own meter, yes. On this lot the house and the accessory dwelling each had their own work request, their own charge and their own grant of permission to operate, for arrays the utility recorded at 2.32 and 1.45 kilowatts.

Does filing two requests cost twice as much?

The utility charge is per work request, and a work request attaches to a meter — so two separately metered dwellings means two charges. It is the count of services that doubles the paperwork, not the size of the arrays.

Can both dwellings be switched on at once?

They can, and here they were — both grants of permission arrived on the same day, sixty days after filing. It is not automatic, though. Two work requests can move at different speeds, and filing them together is what keeps them in step.

Why was the meter changed rather than installed?

Because a new building gets an ordinary meter first, so the site has power while it is being built. The net meter replaces it once the solar is released. On this lot the permission notice records both dwellings as a meter change rather than a new set.

What is different about solar on a developer's build?

Who knows what, and when. On an owner-occupied job the person paying tells you what is happening. On a development the information sits with an office, a general contractor and several subcontractors, and it reaches the solar installer last. Build site access and notice into the schedule rather than assuming them.

What this would look like on your roof

Related

• The homes were finished. The utility's system said address not found North Hollywood, CA · 2.59 kW each · two ADUs, two interconnections Solar
• The work request opened on one street and closed on another North Hollywood, CA · 3.2 kW · corner lot, two addresses Solar
• One house. Two work requests. Two meter spots Winnetka, CA · 4.73 kW DC · panel and solar Solar
• The array was ready. The building was not Northridge, CA · 2.32 kW AC-CEC · new two-storey ADU Solar

This timeline reflects this property and this permitting path. Updated September 2026.