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Net Metering Calculator

Find out what your exported solar electricity is actually worth under your utility's policy — full retail net metering, net billing (NEM 3.0 style), or something in between — and how much of your savings comes from self-consumption rather than export credits.

Calculate Your Export Credit Value

A typical 6 kW system produces roughly 7,000–9,000 kWh/year in the U.S. Not sure? Use our panel count calculator, or run NREL's free PVWatts tool for an address-specific figure.

The share of production you use as it's generated instead of exporting. Typical home without a battery: 30–50%. With a battery: 70–90%. Work-from-home households and homes with daytime AC or EV charging land at the higher end.

What you pay to buy power. U.S. average is about 18¢/kWh in 2026; California and the Northeast run far higher.

Only used when "Custom export rate" is selected above. Net billing credits commonly land around 4–8¢/kWh. Your utility's rate sheet or your solar bid should state this explicitly.

Your Annual Solar Bill Savings

How This Calculator Works

Solar savings come from two completely different sources, and most calculators blur them together. This one separates them deliberately, because the split is what determines whether a change in net metering policy hurts you a lot or barely at all.

Self-consumed power is electricity your panels produce that your home uses immediately. It never touches the export meter. Every kWh in this bucket offsets a kWh you would otherwise have bought at full retail rate — so it's worth your retail rate, and no net metering policy change can reduce that value.

Exported power is the surplus that flows to the grid. This is the only portion your utility's export policy governs, and it's where full retail net metering and net billing diverge sharply.

The calculator multiplies each bucket by its own rate and adds them together. It uses annual totals rather than hour-by-hour modeling, which keeps the inputs simple while still showing the structural point clearly.

Why Self-Consumption Share Matters More Than the Policy

Run the calculator twice — once at 30% self-consumption and once at 80% — and the difference between full retail net metering and net billing shrinks dramatically at the higher figure. That's the whole story of solar economics under modern export rules.

If you export most of your production, your savings are highly exposed to whatever your utility decides to pay for exports. If you consume most of it as you generate it, your savings are anchored to the retail rate you're avoiding, and export policy becomes a secondary concern.

This is why battery storage changed from a backup-power purchase to a financial one in net billing states. A battery doesn't create energy; it moves your production from the export bucket to the self-consumption bucket. The value of that shift is roughly the gap between your retail rate and your export rate, for every kWh moved.

What This Calculator Doesn't Model

Deliberately kept out of scope so the core comparison stays readable and honest:

  • Time-of-use rates. Many solar households are on TOU tariffs where both the retail rate and the export credit vary by hour and season. TOU generally improves battery economics beyond what's shown here.
  • Non-bypassable charges and fixed fees. Most utilities levy per-kWh charges or monthly connection fees that solar cannot offset. Your bill will not reach zero even if your production exceeds your consumption.
  • True-up and credit rollover rules. Some utilities roll unused credits forward indefinitely; others zero them out annually, sometimes without cash payout for a surplus.
  • Rate escalation and panel degradation. This is a snapshot of year one. Over 25 years, rising retail rates tend to increase savings while panel output declines roughly 0.5%/year.

For the full lifetime picture including system cost and payback period, use our solar panel ROI calculator alongside this one.

Checking Your Own Utility's Policy

The export rate is the single number most worth verifying before you sign a solar contract, and it's the one most often glossed over in sales presentations. Three places to confirm it:

  • Your utility's residential rate sheet, usually filed publicly and searchable for terms like "net metering," "net billing," "excess generation credit," or "avoided cost."
  • Your state public utility commission, which approves these tariffs and posts pending changes. Worth checking for open proceedings that could change your terms.
  • The solar bid itself. Ask the installer in writing what export rate their savings estimate assumes. If the number they used is higher than your utility's published rate, the entire savings projection is inflated.

Also ask about grandfathering. Many states lock customers onto the policy in effect at interconnection, often for 20 years — which means the date your system goes live can be worth thousands of dollars.

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Quick Facts

  • Full retail NEM: 1 kWh export = 1 kWh credit
  • Net billing credit: often ~4–8¢/kWh
  • Self-consumption without battery: 30–50%
  • With battery: 70–90%
  • Grandfathering: commonly 20 years

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between net metering and net billing?

Under full retail net metering, every kWh you export earns a credit equal to the retail rate you pay for grid power — one exported kWh cancels out one imported kWh. Under net billing (California's NEM 3.0 is the best-known example), exports are credited at a much lower avoided-cost or wholesale rate, often roughly 4 to 8 cents per kWh, while you still buy grid power at full retail. The distinction matters enormously: the same array producing the same electricity can be worth hundreds of dollars per year more under full retail net metering than under net billing.

How much does NEM 3.0 reduce solar savings?

It depends almost entirely on how much of your production you consume directly rather than export. NEM 3.0 cut California export credits by roughly 75 percent, but it did not change the value of the solar power you use in your own home at the moment it is produced — that power still offsets electricity you would have bought at full retail. A household exporting most of its production sees a large hit; a household with high daytime usage or a battery sees a much smaller one. This is why self-consumption share is the single most important input in this calculator.

Does a battery make sense under net billing?

Under net billing, a battery stores midday production that would otherwise be exported at a low credit rate, then discharges it in the evening when you would otherwise buy power at full retail. That arbitrage is worth roughly the gap between your retail rate and your export rate for every kWh shifted. Under full retail net metering the grid already acts as a free one-for-one battery, so storage adds far less financial value and is usually justified by backup power rather than bill savings. Use the self-consumption slider in this calculator to model what a battery would do for you.

Is net metering going away?

Full retail net metering has been narrowed or replaced in several states, most visibly in California, and other states have opened proceedings to revisit it. Many states still offer full retail net metering. Existing customers are commonly grandfathered onto the policy in force when their system was interconnected, frequently for 20 years, which is why the interconnection date on a solar contract carries real financial value. Because these rules are set state by state and change periodically, confirm the current tariff with your own utility before signing anything.