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Net Metering Program
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Ameren Illinois net metering in Illinois

Central and southern Illinois, including Springfield, Peoria, Decatur and the Metro East. Covers most of the state by area. Its own smart inverter rebate has had intermittent funding, so ask whether it is currently open before you plan around it.

Type
Investor owned
Accounts
1.2M

What they credit you

Supply rate only, since January 2025

Published terms

Your export is still netted against what you draw, but only for the supply and transmission part of the bill. Delivery is charged on every kilowatt hour you pull from the grid, no matter how much you sent back. Systems that had permission to operate before 1 January 2025 keep full retail for the life of the system.

Month to month
Credits carry against the bill.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-05 · source

Installers serving Ameren Illinois 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 Ameren Illinois 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 Ameren Illinois bill

An average Illinois 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$137.84
$137.84
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 41733 kilowatt hours. A 693 kilowatt hour month against 886 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 193 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $137.84 to $0.00 at 19.89 cents per kilowatt hour.

Illinois average household use, 693 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 19.89¢ 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.

Ameren Illinois requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in Ameren Illinois territory.

Ameren Illinois 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 Ameren Illinois 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. Illinois now credits new systems’ exports against supply charges only, so exports no longer reduce delivery charges. That makes using your own production inside the house worth more than exporting it. Ameren Illinois sets its own limits. Ask Ameren Illinois 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 Ameren Illinois 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

If you already have solar here, do not accept the distributed generation rebate without confirming in writing what it does to your net metering rate.

What Ameren Illinois 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
$13.38 a month, or $13.90 once the per-bill item is added
How it is set
Ameren splits it in two and you have to add them. Rate DS-1 states no figure at all; it sends you to the Appendix of the Rate PBR-R tariff, and that Appendix sets a Customer Charge of $7.42 and a separate Meter Charge of $5.96 for 2026, which is $13.38 before a kilowatt hour is delivered. A further $0.52 for uncollectibles is applied per monthly bill, taking it to $13.90. Quoting the Customer Charge on its own, which is the figure most comparison tables carry, understates the floor by nearly half. The Appendix is banded by year: the same two charges were $6.77 and $5.32 in 2025 and rise to $8.50 and $6.36 in 2027.

Rate PBR-R Appendix, 6th Revised Sheet No. 8.011, effective 28 August 2025, ICC Docket 25-0083 · checked 2026-09-19 · source

Applying to Ameren Illinois

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

The change landed on 1 January 2025
New solar participants from that date receive credit for exported electricity at their electricity supply rate rather than the full retail rate. Delivery charges are no longer offset by exports.
Older systems keep full retail for life, on conditions
Anyone net metering before 1 January 2025 keeps full retail crediting for the life of the system, as long as they keep meeting their class’s rules. At ComEd, a customer who "applies for net metering for an Eligible Facility on or after January 1, 2025", or whose system received a distributed generation rebate, is on the supply-only class instead.
The distributed generation rebate can cost you the grandfathering
ComEd’s distributed generation rebate is $300 per kW DC, about $2,100 on a 7 kW DC system. Under ComEd’s Rider POGNM a system that received it is on the supply-only class "even if such retail customer did not receive such DG Rebate", for example when an installer or leasing company claimed it. Get the trade in writing before anyone takes the check.
Adding panels or a battery can change your class
At ComEd the test is a new application for net metering, not the size of the change, and since June 2026 a battery interconnected with solar must sit on a time-of-use or hourly supply product. If you are on the old arrangement and thinking about expanding, ask your utility in writing which class the change puts you in before you sign.
What supply-only actually does to a bill, in numbers
The state program puts it plainly. Say your system sends 400 kWh to the grid in a month and you pull 500 kWh from it. Your net usage is 100 kWh. You pay supply and transmission charges on that 100 kWh, which is the netting working as you would expect. But you pay delivery charges on the full 500 kWh, because delivery is no longer part of the calculation at all. Delivery is a large share of an Illinois bill, so this is the whole of the change and it is why the headline number moved so far.
Buy a house with older solar here and you can inherit the good rate
ComEd’s Rider POGNM keeps a legacy class with "a successor retail customer at an eligible premises" for "the lifetime of the Distributed Electric Renewable Generating Facilities so long as such retail customer continues to meet the eligibility requirements of such classification". The exception is a system on which a distributed generation rebate was paid: a buyer is then on the supply-only class. Ask for the rebate history before you make an offer.
The two utilities lose grandfathering in different ways
It is not one statewide test. In ComEd territory the rider’s test is applying for net metering for an Eligible Facility on or after 1 January 2025. In Ameren territory the trigger is doubling the nameplate capacity of the project. A change that would be safe on one side of the state line between the two territories may not be safe on the other, so ask your own utility rather than reading a general Illinois article.
MidAmerican counted a different date
ComEd and Ameren decided eligibility on the date permission to operate was granted. MidAmerican decided it on the date a completed net metering application was submitted. For anyone still sorting out what rate they ended up on, that distinction is the reason two neighbors who signed in the same week can be on different tariffs.
Ask which rate a quote assumes
Supply rate and full retail rate differ by the whole delivery component. A savings estimate built on the wrong one is not slightly wrong, it is wrong by the largest line on the bill.

From Ameren Illinois’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-19 · source

Ameren Illinois net metering questions

Does Ameren Illinois offer one for one net metering?
No. Your export is still netted against what you draw, but only for the supply and transmission part of the bill. Delivery is charged on every kilowatt hour you pull from the grid, no matter how much you sent back. Systems that had permission to operate before 1 January 2025 keep full retail for the life of the system.
What does Ameren Illinois pay for power sent back to the grid?
Supply rate only, since January 2025. Credits carry against the bill.
Do I need a battery with Ameren Illinois?
Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because Ameren Illinois 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 Ameren Illinois territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my Ameren Illinois bill?
Sign in at ameren.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 Ameren Illinois?
If you already have solar here, do not accept the distributed generation rebate without confirming in writing what it does to your net metering rate.