Duke Energy Kentucky net metering in Kentucky

Applying to Duke Kentucky

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

It shows its working, and one line is a zero

Rider NM II prints the Avoided Cost Excess Generation Credit as a table: energy 5.6893 cents with environmental and carbon folded in, distribution 1.2793, generation 0.3583, transmission 0.1176, ancillary services 0.0360, total 7.4805 cents. The last row is "Job Creation: Not Included". Kentucky’s statute contemplates a jobs component and Duke’s table values it at nothing.

No fees to apply, which is not true everywhere

"No application fees or other review, study, or inspection fees are charged by the Company for Level 1 or Level 2 applications." Metering is free too, though any additional meters or distribution upgrades are at your expense.

You give up the right to refuse a smart meter

Customers on Rider NM II "will not be eligible for the Company’s Rider AMO, Advanced Meter Opt-out". Customers on temporary service cannot take the rider at all.

And you may be barred from selling into PJM

The rider says customer-generators "may be prohibited from simultaneous participation in both this Rider NM-II and any Energy Resource Aggregation or any Distributed Energy Resource Aggregator, as those terms are defined by PJM", other than an aggregation Duke itself forms. If a company offers to enroll your battery in a grid services program, check this first.

The 1 percent ceiling counts the old rider too

Availability runs first come, first served up to 1% of the previous year’s single hour peak load "including capacity participating under KYPSC Electric No. 2 Sheet No. 89 Rider NM I". The legacy customers are using up the same allowance you are applying for.

Net metering can close permanently, one utility at a time

KRS 278.466(1): once net metering reaches "one percent (1%) of a supplier’s single hour peak load during a calendar year, the supplier shall have no further obligation to offer net metering to any new customer-generator at any subsequent time." Ask your supplier how close it is to its 1% before you plan around net metering at all.

The rate is set by the Commission, not by the statute and not by retail

Suppliers compensate for all electricity that flows to them "at a rate ... set by the commission using the ratemaking processes under this chapter". It is a docket number, not a law, and it can be reopened.

The law explicitly permits a solar-only charge

KRS 278.466(5) lets each supplier recover "all costs necessary to serve its eligible customer-generators, including but not limited to fixed and demand-based costs, without regard for the rate structure for customers who are not eligible customer-generators." If a monthly charge appears that your neighbor does not pay, this is the authority for it.

Credits are dollars, not kilowatt hours, and they do not come back

Compensation is "in the form of a dollar-denominated bill credit", carried to the next bill. It is not transferable between customers or premises, and "if an eligible customer-generator closes his or her account, no cash refund for accumulated credits shall be paid."

Older systems keep one for one for twenty-five years, and it survives a sale

For facilities in service before the Commission’s initial net metering order, the original tariff terms including "the one-to-one (1:1) kilowatt-hour denominated energy credit" stay in place for twenty-five years "regardless of whether the premises are sold or conveyed". If you are buying a Kentucky house with older solar on it, that is an asset with a date on it. Ask for the interconnection date in writing.

The extra meter is yours to pay for

The supplier provides a standard bidirectional meter. "Any additional meter, meters, or distribution upgrades needed to monitor the flow in each direction shall be installed at the customer-generator’s expense."

From Duke Kentucky’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-21 · source