field-workers-safety

Employees Working Near Your Home or Business

TEP employees work in your neighborhood throughout the year to support safe, reliable service.

Almost all of our electric meters are located on customer property. Recurring safety inspections and routine maintenance performed by our employees require access to the electric meter, service lines and other equipment on your property. Our employees must be able to safely reach this equipment to properly assess its condition and perform work.

Identifying TEP employees

We value the safety of our customers and our employees. How can you identify TEP employees working near your home or business?

  • Look for the TEP logo on the employee’s clothing, safety equipment and vehicle.
  • Ask to see the employee’s identification. All employees are required to show their ID badge when asked. Make a note of the employee's vehicle number.
  • Call TEP directly to verify the employee’s identity and reason for work in the area. Our number is 520-623-7711 – the same number listed on your monthly electric bill. Provide the employee's vehicle number to a member of our Customer Care team for verification.

For more information about spotting scammers who might try to impersonate TEP employees, visit our scam awareness page.

Reasons for access

TEP field employees, including trouble shooters, line locators and metering technicians, might need to access your property while performing several duties that can occur at any time. These include:

  • Reading meters.
  • Locating and marking underground electrical facilities in response to requests from the Arizona 811 center.
  • Investigating reports of downed power lines, outages or poor voltage.
  • Investigating damage to overhead or underground electrical equipment.
  • Exchanging or performing maintenance on electric meters.
  • Inspecting meter communication functionality.
  • Replacing faulty equipment.

Click here to learn more about TEP's rules and regulations.

Please report all outages and emergencies to our Emergency Hotline at 520-623-3451.

Customers also are encouraged to call 811 before starting any digging project so that local utilities including TEP can locate underground facilities at no cost.

Meter location

Although electric meters typically are installed on or adjacent to customers’ homes or businesses, they also can be installed in other locations including at the edge of a customers’ property or in alleys.

To help ensure safe and reliable service, please make sure that your meter is free of obstructions and accessible to our employees at all times. Overgrown vegetation, new structures or debris can make meters hard to find for our employees. Please refer to Section 10 of TEP's rules and regulations, which states:

  • Access to Customer Premises (910.C)
    At all times, the Company will have the right of safe ingress to and egress from the Customer’s premises at all reasonable hours for any purpose reasonably connected with the Company’s property used in furnishing service and the exercise of any and all rights secured to it by law or these Rules.

Additionally, employees may at all reasonable times enter any premises being served by TEP to examine TEP property or determine the quantity of electricity consumed, according to Arizona law (ARS 40-431).

More electric safety

Electric Service for TEP Customers

Customers: 433,000
Employees: 1,700
Service territory:

  • 1,155 square miles
  • More than 2,000 miles of transmission lines
  • More than 2,500 miles of distribution lines
  • More than 100,000 power poles and transmission structures