The first place we saw meter/mains was in piling houses so they could have a disconnect at grade and it also made it easy to retrofit living space under the house in the flood zone after the CO. Ian has a lot of folks considering the wisdom of that decision after FEMA denied all claims for things below the permitted finished floor.
Meter mains are also the most common way to do a service upgrade. They typically leave the existing panel, rewired as a sub and then add new loads to another sub. I was just over at a neighbor's house looking over his plan to do an upgrade and define the scope of work he needs to contract. For him, it is actually fairly easy. His grounds and neutrals are already on separate buses in the main so he only has to lift the MBJ in the existing and pull in a new EGC. (back to back install) He may get away with only a few hours of billable time to swap out the existing meter can with an all in one. His plan is to add another 50a for the RV he is living in now because of the flood and for his new Tesla when he gets it. I am not willing to bet which will come first. The meter main he has picked out has a bunch of slots so he will have plenty of growing room. I imagine 320a is probably all FPL will give him but that should be plenty. I am curious if they even swap out the 2 ga aluminum drop. They are real bad about that. One of my other friends had to fight to get a heavier drop, They said they doubt he was ever even going to stress the drop he had.
