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Net Metering Program
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Sacramento Municipal Utility District net metering in California

Sacramento County and a small part of Placer County. A municipal district with an elected board, outside the Commission’s jurisdiction and outside net billing.

Type
Municipal
Accounts
650K

What they credit you

9.6 cents, and it cannot touch the fixed charges

Published terms

SMUD credits every exported kilowatt hour at a flat Export Compensation Rate of $0.0960, set in its own Rate Schedule SSR and effective 1 June 2026. The credit offsets electricity usage charges only: the System Infrastructure Fixed Charge and the Site Infrastructure Charge have to be paid whatever your roof does.

Month to month
Any credit left after a month’s usage charges carries to the following billing period.
Once a year
None. Credit carries forward rather than being paid out.
System size
The system must be intended primarily to offset up to 110% of your own electrical requirements, with a maximum of 3,000 kW. Residential customers must also be on Rate Schedule R-TOD.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-06 · source

Installers serving SMUD customers

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

Not sure which to choose?

These are real companies operating in SMUD 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 SMUD 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…

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.

SMUD requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in SMUD territory.

SMUD 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 SMUD 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. SMUD sets its own limits. Ask SMUD 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 SMUD 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

SMUD resets this rate every four years and may move it by up to 30% either way, so the figure is fixed for four years rather than for the life of the system. If your system was approved for interconnection on or before 28 February 2022 you are on the older NEM1 schedule and should confirm before anyone moves you.

What SMUD 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
$27.00 a month, or $17.00 on the Low Use rate
How it is set
SMUD calls it the System Infrastructure Fixed Charge, and Rate Schedule R-TOD prints it as one figure per meter per month: $27.00 on the Time-of-Day (5-8 p.m.) rate, which is the default residential rate, in both the summer and non-summer seasons. Read the column, not the row — the schedule bands three rate years side by side, "Effective as of May 1, 2025", "January 1, 2026" and "January 1, 2027", at $26.20, $27.00 and $27.80. The middle column is the one in force now, and this charge rises to $27.80 on 1 January 2027 whatever your system does. The Time-of-Day (Low Use) rate carries $17.00 instead, and the Energy Assistance Program Rate is a separate schedule again. What makes this the floor rather than just a fixed charge is Rate Schedule SSR, the Solar and Storage Rate every SMUD solar household is on. Its payments clause says the export credit "can only offset electricity usage charges", and then lists what must be paid each monthly billing cycle regardless: the System Infrastructure Fixed Charge, the Summer Peak Demand Charge, the Maximum Demand Charge, the Site Infrastructure Charge, any usage not offset by the credit, program fees, surcharges and taxes. So exporting more does not reduce it, and a credit balance carried forward cannot be spent against it.

Rate Schedule R-TOD, Residential Time-of-Day Service, Sheet No. R-TOD-2, Resolution 25-06-15 adopted 19 June 2025; payments clause at Rate Schedule SSR, Sheet No. SSR-3, as amended by Resolution 26-04-04, effective 1 June 2026 · checked 2026-09-30 · source

SMUD net metering questions

Does SMUD offer one for one net metering?
No. SMUD credits every exported kilowatt hour at a flat Export Compensation Rate of $0.0960, set in its own Rate Schedule SSR and effective 1 June 2026. The credit offsets electricity usage charges only: the System Infrastructure Fixed Charge and the Site Infrastructure Charge have to be paid whatever your roof does.
What does SMUD pay for power sent back to the grid?
9.6 cents, and it cannot touch the fixed charges. None. Credit carries forward rather than being paid out.
Do I need a battery with SMUD?
Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because SMUD 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 SMUD territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my SMUD bill?
Sign in at smud.org. 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 SMUD?
SMUD resets this rate every four years and may move it by up to 30% either way, so the figure is fixed for four years rather than for the life of the system. If your system was approved for interconnection on or before 28 February 2022 you are on the older NEM1 schedule and should confirm before anyone moves you.