What is the Solar Billing Plan?

For customers considering solar and other renewable generation at their homes, the Solar Billing Plan is designed to help modernize solar rates to promote grid reliability, incentivize solar and battery storage, and help control electricity costs for all Californians. Each month, billing will include charges for energy used from the electric grid, as well as credits for energy exported to the grid.

Charges

Residential customers who enroll in the Solar Billing Plan will be transitioned to the TOU-D-Prime rate and will be charged the full retail rate for all energy that they consume. For more information on the TOU-D-Prime rate, visit Time-Of-Use Residential Rate Plans.

Energy Export Credit (EEC)

On the Solar Billing Plan, Energy Export Credits will be applied to the amount of electricity a customer exports to the grid and will reflect the electricity's value to the electric grid during each hour of the day. Energy Export Credits will be calculated by taking the kilowatt hours generated by the customer's generating system that is exported hourly to the grid multiplied by the Energy Export Credit prices. These EEC prices will vary hourly throughout the day. Customers who enroll in the Solar Billing Plan in the next five years will have fixed EEC prices for the first nine years of operation. This nine-year period is referred to as the lock-in period.

Energy Export Bonus Credit

To encourage early adoption of the Solar Billing Plan, residential customers who enroll in the first five years are also eligible to receive an additional credit. Those enrolling in the first year of the program will receive an additional $0.04 per kWh for residential customers and $0.09 per kWh for low-income customers. Currently, three groups of customers are considered low-income:

Residential customers who are enrolled in the CARE and FERA programs.
Residential owners of single-family homes in Disadvantaged Communities, or
Residential customers living in Tribal Communities