Net Energy Metering impacts your solar market

By far Net Energy Metering is the most misunderstood part of going solar and it's extremely important to your solar experience. NEM is the process where energy producers can sell energy back to their power providers which is vital for solar to make sense.  While solar production is great when the sun is out, even solar homes don't produce energy at night.   So, what happens at night during this dormant period?  Your local power provider sends you energy when needed such as at night or on cloudy days when production is down.  In order to offset these costs associated with your energy needs during dormant periods, you'll want your system to produce enough energy to send to your power company so that it can be used as a credit towards your dormant periods.  

This is why receiving strong credit values is important to every residential solar installation.  In 2015, this is precisely why solar companies left Las Vegas, Nevada.  NV Energy decided to offer very little for energy credits and this dynamic devalued solar installation and shut down the solar market.  Fortunately, assembly bill 405 in 2017 forced NV Energy to offer fair market value for energy credits. Now should you go solar in Nevada, you get a twenty-year credit rate which can't be changed.  In markets like Phoenix, they've been impacted by a year over year decrease in energy credit values with APS.  So if you live in a market that currently offers a solid NEM program, it probably won't last forever.  

In California in 2023 they devalued their credit values and essentially forced homeowners to install batteries on their home and use them for peak energy hours.  This type of program is likely the way of the future.  

To learn more about Net Energy Metering as a NV Energy customer, click here. 

For more information on Net Energy Metering with the Nevada Public Utility Commission, click here.