What does SDG&E pay for power sent back to the grid?

Hourly avoided cost credit, with no bonus adder. Annual, at the end of each 12-month Relevant Period, which starts on your permission to operate date (you may ask once to move it). Net Surplus Compensation applies only if you exported more kilowatt hours than you imported over that period: the surplus kilowatt hours are debited at “the utility’s average real-world retail export compensation rates” for all NBT customers over the past 12 months, then re-credited at the simple rolling average of SDG&E’s DLAP price from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. over your 12-month Relevant Period, plus a renewable attribute adder only if you certify and transfer the RECs. The result is applied to what you owe and then rolls forward against future bills; SDG&E issues a check on request if more than $1 remains, and automatically if you close all your SDG&E accounts. Community choice aggregation and Direct Access customers get no Net Surplus Compensation from SDG&E and must ask their CCA or ESP whether it pays any.

Do I need a battery with SDG&E?

Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because SDG&E does not credit exports one for one, the return has to come from using your own production rather than selling it, which after dark means storage and usually a larger array than a one for one utility would need. The other half is backup: panels alone shut off in an outage, so a battery is what keeps the house running in a storm. We do not refer panels-only systems in SDG&E territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.

How do I find my SDG&E bill?

Sign in at sdge.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.

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San Diego Gas and Electric net metering in California

San Diego County and southern Orange County. In its December 2022 net billing decision the CPUC cited "higher rates in SDG&E’s territory" than at PG&E and SCE, and set SDG&E’s export bonus at $0.

Type: Investor owned
Accounts: 1.5M

What they credit you

Hourly avoided cost credit, with no bonus adder

Published terms

SDG&E’s Solar Billing Plan (Schedule NBT) credits each exported kilowatt hour at an hourly value from the CPUC’s Avoided Cost Calculator and pays no bonus adder on top, because the CPUC set SDG&E’s adder at $0. Imports and exports are not netted: you pay for every imported kilowatt hour on Schedule EV-TOU-5, generation credits can offset only per kilowatt hour generation charges and delivery credits only per kilowatt hour delivery charges, and neither can touch the daily Base Services Charge or the non-bypassable charges. For applications filed in 2026 (SDG&E rate NBT26), the 2026 values run from $0.00 between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. on some March to May weekends to $1.069771 a kilowatt hour at 6 p.m. on August weekdays ($0.864014 generation plus $0.205757 delivery), but every value between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. is under $0.07 and only 22 of the 576 month, day type and hour values, all between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. from July to September, reach $0.25. A complete application filed between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2027 locks in a nine-year schedule of hourly values, which change from year to year, taken from the Avoided Cost Calculator adopted as of 1 January of the application year and counted from permission to operate; you can switch to one-year rates instead, but cannot switch back.

Month to month: Unused generation and delivery credits carry from month to month within the 12-month Relevant Period, each kept separate: generation credits offset only generation charges and delivery credits only delivery charges. At the annual true up, any remaining credits carry into the next Relevant Period instead of expiring, but only while you stay on Schedule NBT: leave the tariff and they are forfeited at the last true up, and moving between SDG&E supply and a community choice aggregator or Direct Access forfeits the generation credits.
Once a year: Annual, at the end of each 12-month Relevant Period, which starts on your permission to operate date (you may ask once to move it). Net Surplus Compensation applies only if you exported more kilowatt hours than you imported over that period: the surplus kilowatt hours are debited at “the utility’s average real-world retail export compensation rates” for all NBT customers over the past 12 months, then re-credited at the simple rolling average of SDG&E’s DLAP price from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. over your 12-month Relevant Period, plus a renewable attribute adder only if you certify and transfer the RECs. The result is applied to what you owe and then rolls forward against future bills; SDG&E issues a check on request if more than $1 remains, and automatically if you close all your SDG&E accounts. Community choice aggregation and Direct Access customers get no Net Surplus Compensation from SDG&E and must ask their CCA or ESP whether it pays any.

Published terms · checked 2026-10-13 · source

Installers serving SDG&E customers

Pick one. Only the company you choose receives your details, and only that company calls you.

CompanyReviews, years trading, BBB grade

Not sure which to choose?

Let us choose the installer for youIf you are not sure which company to pick, we will recommend a trusted partner installer that serves your address, from the installers available in your area.Choose for me

These are real companies operating in SDG&E 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 SDG&E 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 readingkWh

Energy charge$174.74

$174.74

We have read this provider’s own tariff. What it still bills you at zero is set out below, with the sheet it came from. The energy line above uses the statewide average. See what they still bill

DirectionReading…

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.

SDG&E requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in SDG&E territory.

SDG&E does not credit the power you send back at the rate it charges you to take it.

That does not make solar a bad idea in SDG&E territory. It changes what you should build. When exports are worth a fraction of retail the credit stops being the return, and the job becomes using more of your own production inside the house, which usually means a larger array than a one for one utility would need.

Sizing is where that gets decided, so ask about it directly. California pays least for exports in the middle of the day and most in the summer evening, so under net billing a system is sized against what you can use or store rather than against what you can generate. SDG&E sets its own limits. Ask SDG&E what it allows before you accept that a bigger system is off the table.

A battery then does two separate jobs. It moves daytime production into the evening so you use it instead of selling it, and it keeps the house running when the grid goes down. That second job is not a bonus. Panels on their own shut off in an outage, by design, so a roof full of them powers nothing during a storm. That is the part we will not refer around.

So we treat it as a requirement, not an upgrade. We will not refer you for a panels-only system in SDG&E territory, and you should be skeptical of anyone who quotes you one without raising storage first.

Our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement

What your installer should be telling you

Ask whether the savings quote includes any export bonus or ACC Plus adder: SDG&E customers receive none, so a quote that adds one is wrong. Ask for savings modeled on Schedule EV-TOU-5, the import rate Schedule NBT requires, using SDG&E’s hourly export values for the year your complete application will be filed; on 13 October 2026 SDG&E’s export pricing page posts files only for 2023 to 2026, so for a 2027 application ask where the installer’s values came from. If San Diego Community Power or Clean Energy Alliance supplies your power, get that aggregator’s generation export rate in writing, because SDG&E pays only the delivery component, which is under one cent a kilowatt hour in 560 of the 576 values for 2026. If you are buying a house that already has panels, Schedule NBT says the nine-year legacy period belongs to the customer who had the system installed and does not pass to you, unless you are that customer’s spouse or domestic partner or are buying a new home whose builder got permission to operate before the sale.

What SDG&E 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: $24.15 a month for most households, $12.08 or about $6.00 if you qualify
How it is set: Schedule TOU-DR prints the Base Services Charge as a daily rate rather than a monthly one: $0.79343 a day, which is $24.15 over an average month, with FERA households and qualifying deed-restricted affordable housing at $0.39688 a day, or $12.08. SDG&E’s billing pages give CARE as roughly $0.197 a day, about $6.00. It replaced the old floor outright in October 2025: "The Base Services Charge will replace minimum bills, so once it’s in place, the minimum bill amount will no longer apply." On solar SDG&E is unusually direct, and the two plans differ only in vocabulary: under net energy metering the charge "is a non-bypassable charge not eligible to be offset by generation credits", and under the Solar Billing Plan it "is a non-nettable charge that is not eligible to be offset by export credits". Whatever your roof does, this line is paid. Set it against the energy charges on the same sheet, which are steep enough to make self consumption the main prize: from 30 September 2026, 56.757 cents a kilowatt hour on summer on peak and 61.448 cents on winter on peak, before the 10.702 cent credit for usage up to 130% of baseline. A household on the Solar Billing Plan is billed on Schedule EV-TOU-5 instead, where the summer on peak rate is 80.205 cents and the Base Services Charge is the same.

Schedule TOU-DR, Residential Time of Use Service, Sheet 2 (Cal. P.U.C. 65139-E, AL 4874-E, D.25-09-006, effective 30 September 2026); Schedule EV-TOU-5, Sheets 2 and 3 (65198-E and 65199-E, AL 4874-E, effective 30 September 2026), the import rate Schedule NBT requires · checked 2026-10-13 · source

Applying to SDG&E

What SDG&E itself requires, as distinct from what the state rule requires. Read from its own published guidelines on the date shown.

It is called net billing, and the name is the warning: Under the Net Billing Tariff, exports are sold and consumption is bought as two separate transactions. They are not netted. Any quote that says California net metering is describing a tariff closed to new customers since April 2023.
The export price changes every hour of every day: Compensation comes from the Commission’s Avoided Cost Calculator, with a separate value for each combination of month, hour, and weekday or weekend, and each utility publishes its own set of values. There is no single cents figure to quote.
Exports were repriced, self consumption was not: Against the previous tariff, an exported kilowatt hour is now credited at an hourly avoided cost value rather than close to the retail rate. The part that did not change is the important part: a kilowatt hour you use inside the house still avoids the full retail rate. Only what leaves the meter was repriced.
The worst hour to export is the hour you produce most: Value is lowest in the middle of the day, when the grid already has abundant solar, and highest during summer evening peaks. Panels alone are therefore selling into the cheapest hours of the day.
This is the state where a battery does the most work: Storage moves production out of the cheap midday hours and into the evening ones, where nearly all of the export value sits on the utilities’ own price sheets.
There is no bonus credit at SDG&E: PG&E and SCE customers can earn an ACC Plus bonus on each exported kilowatt hour. SDG&E customers cannot: the Commission’s decision set SDG&E’s adder at "$0/kWh" for residential and low-income customers alike, and SDG&E’s Schedule NBT contains no bonus provision. A savings estimate for an SDG&E home that includes one is wrong.
On a community choice aggregator the utility pays only the delivery part: Export compensation is built from a generation component and a delivery component. A bundled utility customer receives both. If your supply comes from a community choice aggregator or through direct access, the utility pays you only the delivery component, which is usually a small fraction of the total, and no Net Surplus Compensation at the true up. What the aggregator pays for the generation part is a separate arrangement with them, so ask for it in writing.
The old tariff is closed to new customers: The previous net metering tariff closed to new applications in April 2023. Systems applied for under it had until April 2026 to finish interconnection, final building permit sign-off and electrical clearing, with a later window for some aggregated applications. No new application can join it.
A daily fixed charge sits under the bill: California now bills a Base Services Charge, set by the Commission rather than by the utility and charged by the day: about $24.15 a month for most households, with CARE households near $6.00 and FERA or deed-restricted affordable housing near $12.08. Ordinary export credits cannot pay it. SDG&E calls it "a non-nettable charge that is not eligible to be offset by export credits" on the Solar Billing Plan. At PG&E and SCE the ACC Plus bonus credit is the one exception: their tariffs let it pay any charge, the fixed charge included.

From SDG&E’s published guidelines · checked 2026-10-13 · source

SDG&E net metering questions

Does SDG&E offer one for one net metering?: No. SDG&E’s Solar Billing Plan (Schedule NBT) credits each exported kilowatt hour at an hourly value from the CPUC’s Avoided Cost Calculator and pays no bonus adder on top, because the CPUC set SDG&E’s adder at $0. Imports and exports are not netted: you pay for every imported kilowatt hour on Schedule EV-TOU-5, generation credits can offset only per kilowatt hour generation charges and delivery credits only per kilowatt hour delivery charges, and neither can touch the daily Base Services Charge or the non-bypassable charges. For applications filed in 2026 (SDG&E rate NBT26), the 2026 values run from $0.00 between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. on some March to May weekends to $1.069771 a kilowatt hour at 6 p.m. on August weekdays ($0.864014 generation plus $0.205757 delivery), but every value between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. is under $0.07 and only 22 of the 576 month, day type and hour values, all between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. from July to September, reach $0.25. A complete application filed between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2027 locks in a nine-year schedule of hourly values, which change from year to year, taken from the Avoided Cost Calculator adopted as of 1 January of the application year and counted from permission to operate; you can switch to one-year rates instead, but cannot switch back.
What does SDG&E pay for power sent back to the grid?: Hourly avoided cost credit, with no bonus adder. Annual, at the end of each 12-month Relevant Period, which starts on your permission to operate date (you may ask once to move it). Net Surplus Compensation applies only if you exported more kilowatt hours than you imported over that period: the surplus kilowatt hours are debited at “the utility’s average real-world retail export compensation rates” for all NBT customers over the past 12 months, then re-credited at the simple rolling average of SDG&E’s DLAP price from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. over your 12-month Relevant Period, plus a renewable attribute adder only if you certify and transfer the RECs. The result is applied to what you owe and then rolls forward against future bills; SDG&E issues a check on request if more than $1 remains, and automatically if you close all your SDG&E accounts. Community choice aggregation and Direct Access customers get no Net Surplus Compensation from SDG&E and must ask their CCA or ESP whether it pays any.
Do I need a battery with SDG&E?: Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because SDG&E does not credit exports one for one, the return has to come from using your own production rather than selling it, which after dark means storage and usually a larger array than a one for one utility would need. The other half is backup: panels alone shut off in an outage, so a battery is what keeps the house running in a storm. We do not refer panels-only systems in SDG&E territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my SDG&E bill?: Sign in at sdge.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 SDG&E?: Ask whether the savings quote includes any export bonus or ACC Plus adder: SDG&E customers receive none, so a quote that adds one is wrong. Ask for savings modeled on Schedule EV-TOU-5, the import rate Schedule NBT requires, using SDG&E’s hourly export values for the year your complete application will be filed; on 13 October 2026 SDG&E’s export pricing page posts files only for 2023 to 2026, so for a 2027 application ask where the installer’s values came from. If San Diego Community Power or Clean Energy Alliance supplies your power, get that aggregator’s generation export rate in writing, because SDG&E pays only the delivery component, which is under one cent a kilowatt hour in 560 of the 576 values for 2026. If you are buying a house that already has panels, Schedule NBT says the nine-year legacy period belongs to the customer who had the system installed and does not pass to you, unless you are that customer’s spouse or domestic partner or are buying a new home whose builder got permission to operate before the sale.