Nearly every state has already has taken some action on its net metering policies in the first three months of 2025, according to a report published by the NC Clean Energy Technology Center (NCCETC).
Q1 2025 policy action on net metering, rate design, and solar ownership. NC Clean Energy Technology Center
The NCCETC released its Q1 2025 edition of “The 50 States of Solar,” a quarterly report that provides insights on state regulatory and legislative discussions and actions on distributed solar policy. It focuses on net metering, distributed solar valuation, interconnection rules, community solar, residential fixed charges, residential demand and solar charge and third-party ownership.
“This quarter, regulators around the country took action to implement iterations on community solar programs within their jurisdictions. Many of these iterations were driven by recently enacted legislation,” said Vincent Potter, project manager at NCCETC. “Some programs are shifting from pilots to permanent programs, while others are moving towards program designs focused on low-income customer participation.”
The report finds that 47 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, took some type of distributed solar policy action during Q1 2025, with the greatest number of actions continuing to address net metering policies (55), community solar policies (35) and residential fixed charge or minimum bill increases (34). A total of 193 distributed solar policy actions were taken during Q1 2025, with the most actions taken in Virginia, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Michigan and New Hampshire.
The report finds three trends from these solar policy activities — that states are considering iterative revisions to net metering policies, overhauling community solar programs and expanding system size limits for non-residential net metered systems.
“Around one-third of states offer alternatives to traditional net metering, with additional states utilizing traditional net metering with significant revisions. Now, some of these states are investigating new major revisions — successors to their successors, so to speak,” said Rebekah de la Mora, senior policy analyst at NCCETC. “Some of these reviews were mandated through legislative authority, while others were brought forward by utility regulators, or even utilities themselves.”
News item from NC Clean Energy Technology Center
Our Public Utilities Commission is burying solar users in Idaho. In past winters, my power bills were near $5/month thanks to summer credits stored through our net metering program. After changing to a net billing system and reducing paybacks, my power bills this winter were closer to $50/month. Payback on my solar system installed in 2021 will never happen. I plan to install a battery storage system to use my power better.
Thank you, Solarman2. The article does not provide substantive information on whether the changes are beneficial or detrimental to the continued growth of solar. Is there another source where the information is aggregated?
There’s the conundrum, what is being “called” Net Metering is not a 1:1 credit for excess energy pushed back onto the grid. As more and more States “adjust” their [Net Metering] programs they are actually some form of [Net Billing] where for the most part one is “allowed” say a credit of Wholesale electricity rates and perhaps, just perhaps, two cents more. This is starting to flesh out as 5 cents to 7 cents credit per kWh and $0.12/kwh to $0.20/kWh bundled retail after the sun goes down. Yeah, for many of the early solar PV adopters they may have a few years left on their PPA, after that it will become some Net Billing scheme and they will find on any given day the excess sold at wholesale electricity rates will be used up pretty much overnight each day. This is the extortion codgel pushing the narrative for past solar PV adopters to add Energy Storage to their existing systems and new consumers going with Solar PV AND smart BESS up front as the “system” they buy into from now on. One doesn’t “have” to be off grid. One can still use their already bought and paid for grid connection as the back up and a smart BESS system and hybrid inverter to allow usinge the battery pack for after hours energy self consumption, allow arbitrage and also allow resiliency for grid outages and public safety power shutdowns (PSPS) invoked during storms that can last for hours and even days. Just sayin’, grid [agnostic] will become a “thing” in the years to come.