Los Angeles Department of Water and Power net metering in California
The City of Los Angeles. The largest municipal utility in the United States, and not subject to the Net Billing Tariff. If your bill says LADWP, nothing on the Commission’s tariff applies to you.
- Type
- Municipal
- Accounts
- 1.5M
What they credit you
Retail energy pricing, and the credit never expires
Published termsLADWP credits exported energy at the energy pricing of your own rate schedule, not at an avoided cost. A credit balance carries forward against every subsequent bill with no annual true up and no expiry date, which is a materially better arrangement than the net billing tariff that governs PG&E, SCE and SDG&E.
- Month to month
- Carried against each subsequent bill until it is used up. It cannot be applied to taxes or to minimum charges.
- Once a year
- None. There is no annual reset and no cash payment: the balance simply keeps rolling.
- System size
- Solar, wind or hybrid generation of not more than one megawatt on the customer’s premises, intended primarily to offset the customer’s own use.
Published terms · checked 2026-09-06 · source
Installers serving LADWP customers
Pick one. Only the company you choose receives your details, and only that company calls you.
- Bold EnergyLocal installerBatteryBBB B+, accredited4.948 GoogleMulti-state installer working from a Texas base and publishing 84 licenses across 31 states, with battery storage, repairs and panel removal alongside new installs.All of CaliforniaSelect this installer
- SunrunLocal installerBattery19 years tradingBBB A+, accreditedThe largest residential solar and home battery company in the United States, trading since 2007 and operating in twenty states.All of CaliforniaSelect this installer
These are real companies operating in LADWP territory. Bold Energy is listed first because it is the company we introduce first. That order is our choice, not a score. The other companies are ordered by reviews, years trading and BBB grade. None of them pays us for placement. Pick the one you want and we will call you to arrange it.
Ordering combines three things we read from primary sources: Google review count and rating, years trading taken from the company’s Better Business Bureau profile rather than its own marketing, and its BBB letter grade. BBB accreditation is shown but never scored, because it is a paid membership rather than a mark of quality.
Check any contractor license yourself at the state register. Do that before you sign anything, with any company, including ours.
What this looks like on a LADWP bill
An average California household, against a system sized to cover its year. The energy charge is the part that goes to zero. The fixed monthly charge underneath it is the part that never does, and it is the number that decides whether a system pays for itself.
Meter reading falling from 41926 to 41786 kilowatt hours. A 503 kilowatt hour month against 643 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 140 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $174.74 to $0.00 at 34.74 cents per kilowatt hour.
California average household use, 503 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 34.74¢ per kWh. Your utility still bills a fixed monthly customer charge that no system offsets, so this is the energy part of the bill, which is the part that goes away.
What your installer should be telling you
The credit is never paid out in cash. If you close the account or move, LADWP zeroes any remaining balance and owes you nothing for it, so a large bank built up ahead of a house sale is simply lost. Size to your own usage and spend the credit down before you move.
What LADWP bills you anyway
In a month when your production covers everything you use, the energy charge can reach zero. This does not. It is the floor under every bill, and it is the number that decides whether a system pays for itself.
- The charge
- $10.00 a month, and solar credit cannot touch it
- How it is set
- Schedule R-1 prints it on the rate table itself — "Minimum Charge $ 10.00 Plus ECA, ESA, and RCA" — and the Net Energy Metering rider then settles what a solar household actually owes in a month it generates more than it takes. Section 3.b: where the Department supplies less than the customer generates, "all applicable monthly billing charges, except energy related charges or charges based upon kWh, shall apply." The ECA, ESA and RCA adjustment factors are all charged per kilowatt hour, so they fall away with the energy and the $10.00 does not. Section 3.c is the one to read twice: a credit balance is applied to later bills "except Taxes and Minimum Charges", so the credit you bank in summer can never be spent against this charge. It is the floor in every month of the year no matter how large the bank. The energy above it is tiered and zoned rather than flat — Zone 1 runs 350 kilowatt hours at Tier 1, the next 700 at Tier 2 and the rest at Tier 3, Zone 2 at 500 and 1,000 — with the tier prices in the ordinance carrying the adjustment factors on top, which is why an LADWP bill is not read off the ordinance alone.
Schedule R-1, Residential Service, rate effective 1 July 2009, in LADWP’s published electric rate ordinance; net metering billing and credit treatment at Sections 3.b and 3.c of the Net Energy Metering rider · checked 2026-09-29 · source
LADWP net metering questions
- Does LADWP offer one for one net metering?
- Yes. LADWP credits exported energy at the energy pricing of your own rate schedule, not at an avoided cost. A credit balance carries forward against every subsequent bill with no annual true up and no expiry date, which is a materially better arrangement than the net billing tariff that governs PG&E, SCE and SDG&E. Carried against each subsequent bill until it is used up. It cannot be applied to taxes or to minimum charges.
- What does LADWP pay for power sent back to the grid?
- Retail energy pricing, and the credit never expires. None. There is no annual reset and no cash payment: the balance simply keeps rolling.
- Do I need a battery with LADWP?
- Not for the economics. LADWP credits exports at the retail rate, so power you send out during the day comes back at the same value after dark without storage. A battery is still worth considering for outages during hurricane season, but it is an upgrade here rather than a requirement.
- How do I find my LADWP bill?
- Sign in at ladwp.com. Open My Account, then Billing. Open the latest bill and save the PDF. Or screenshot the summary page. If you cannot get to it, a rough guess at your average monthly amount is enough to start.
- What is the catch with LADWP?
- The credit is never paid out in cash. If you close the account or move, LADWP zeroes any remaining balance and owes you nothing for it, so a large bank built up ahead of a house sale is simply lost. Size to your own usage and spend the credit down before you move.