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Net Metering Program
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Duke Energy Carolinas net metering in North Carolina

The western and central Piedmont, including Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and Hickory. One of two separate Duke utilities in North Carolina with separate tariffs and separate numbers. Which one serves you is a matter of geography, and it changes the export rate, the charge on your nameplate and the minimum bill.

Type
Investor owned
Accounts
2.9M

What they credit you

Retail inside the month, a few cents outside it

Published terms

Rider NMB bills the net kilowatt hours supplied in the month, so exports offset what you buy at the full retail rate. Whatever is left over after that is bought at 4.53 cents, and a $22 minimum bill plus $0.99 per kilowatt of nameplate sits underneath the bill no matter what you generate.

Month to month
Netting is monthly, not annual, so there is no bank to carry forward. Anything above your own monthly usage is settled at the Net Excess Energy Credit rate in the same bill.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-20 · source

Installers serving Duke Carolinas 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 Duke Carolinas 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 Duke Carolinas bill

An average North Carolina 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$149.61
$149.61
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 41643 kilowatt hours. A 1,015 kilowatt hour month against 1,298 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 283 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $149.61 to $0.00 at 14.74 cents per kilowatt hour.

North Carolina average household use, 1,015 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 14.74¢ 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.

Rider NMB is the one that nets your whole month against the retail rate, and it closes on 1 January 2027. Duke Carolinas must have a valid interconnection application in before then. It can also close sooner: new participation is capped each year and reserved first come, first served. After it closes the only rooftop option is Rider RSC, which forces you onto a time of use rate with critical peak pricing and nets each pricing period separately.

What your installer should be telling you

A $22 minimum bill and $0.99 for every kilowatt of nameplate sit under this bill every month, and your credits cannot touch either of them. Ask in writing which rider the quote assumes, because NMB and RSC produce different bills from the same array, and ask what you pay in a month when the energy nets to zero. Size the array to what the house uses rather than to what the roof holds: the kilowatt hours you use yourself are worth the retail rate, and the surplus beyond that is worth 4.53 cents.

What Duke Carolinas 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
$22.00 a month once you have solar, plus $0.99 for every kilowatt of panel
How it is set
Two figures stack here, and only one of them is the ordinary residential charge. Schedule RS sets the Basic Customer Charge at $14.00 a month with energy at 12.2603 cents per kWh. Riders RSC and NMB then impose "a monthly minimum bill of $22 specific to the portion of the Customer’s bill related to customer and distribution costs", which applies whenever the Basic Customer Charge plus the customer and distribution components of the energy charge plus volumetric riders come to less than $22. Credits do not help: the rider says bill credits "are not included in the calculation of the Minimum Bill Charge" and are applied only after it. On top of that sits the Non-Bypassable Charge of $0.99 per month for every kilowatt DC of nameplate, which is not part of the minimum bill calculation at all. So an 8 kW household whose energy nets to zero is looking at about $22.00 plus $7.92, roughly $29.92 a month or $359 a year, before taxes.

Rider NMB, NC Sixth Revised Leaf No. 143, effective 1 September 2026, with Schedule RS, NC Fifty-Ninth Revised Leaf No. 11 · checked 2026-09-20 · source

Applying to Duke Carolinas

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

Which rider you are on decides everything
Rider NM is the legacy rate and closed to new residential participants on 1 October 2023. Riders RSC and NMB opened in its place. If a quote does not name the rider, it is not a quote you can check.
Rider NMB closes on 1 January 2027
The rider says it in as many words: "This Rider will be closed to new participants on and after January 1, 2027." Your interconnection application has to be in before that date. Apply afterwards and the only option left is Rider RSC, which comes with a mandatory time of use rate.
It can also close before that date
New participation in Rider NMB is limited to an Annual Capacity, "available on a first-come, first-served basis and is reserved upon submission of a valid interconnection application". The 2026 allowance is 38,700 kW AC. A customer who applies after it is met must either withdraw and apply again in a later year, or go onto Rider RSC.
NMB nets your kilowatt hours, it does not buy them
Under Rider NMB you are billed for "the net electricity in kilowatt-hours (kWh) supplied by the Company" for the month. Every kilowatt hour you export inside your own monthly usage is therefore worth the full retail rate. Only the surplus beyond that is bought, at 4.53 cents.
RSC nets inside each time of use period separately
Rider RSC requires service on a time of use rate with critical peak pricing, specifically Schedule RSTC or RETC, and nets each period on its own. Cheap off peak export cannot pay for expensive on peak use, and critical peak hours are treated as a separate period again. That changes what you pay for the power you buy, not just what you are paid for the power you sell.
There is a monthly charge on your panels, not on your power
A Non-Bypassable Charge of $0.99 per month applies "per Nameplate Capacity kW" of DC solar. An 8 kW system pays $7.92 a month, about $95 a year, in every month of the year, whether the sun shines or not.
And a minimum bill under everything else
The rider sets "a monthly minimum bill of $22 specific to the portion of the Customer's bill related to customer and distribution costs", and states that "bill credits for net excess energy are not included in the calculation of the Minimum Bill Charge". Generating more does not reduce it.
Above 15 kW there is a Grid Access Fee as well
On Rider RSC the Grid Access Fee is "$0 for customers with Nameplate Capacity at or below 15 kW", and $2.05 per month for every kilowatt above 15. Most homes never reach it; it is worth knowing before anyone proposes a bigger array.
20 kW AC, or your own demand, whichever is smaller
Both riders cap nameplate at "the estimated maximum monthly demand of the residence or 20 kW AC, whichever is less". It is the second half of that sentence that usually bites: your house sets the size, not your roof.
Low income households are exempt from the minimum bill
On Rider NMB, participants who receive LIEAP or Crisis Intervention Program assistance, or who live in homes built for low income and vulnerable customers, "will be exempt from the Minimum Bill, provided the Nameplate Capacity of their system is no greater than 8 kW DC".
You keep the renewable energy credits
Both riders: "Any renewable energy credits (RECs) associated with electricity delivered to the grid by the Customer under this Rider shall be retained by the Customer." That is not true of every utility in this state, so it is worth having in writing.
If you already have solar, your credits die on 30 April
Rider NM, the legacy rate: "Effective with the seasonal rate change each year, any accrued credit not used to reduce billed kWh usage shall be reset to zero on April 30." The same leaf adds that credits "shall not offset the Basic Customer Charge or the Demand Charge". Legacy participants stay on it "until December 31, 2026" and are then moved to Rider NMB. April, not June: Duke Energy Progress uses 31 May and Dominion uses 1 June, and the three get mixed up constantly.

From Duke Carolinas’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-20 · source

Duke Carolinas net metering questions

Does Duke Carolinas offer one for one net metering?
Yes. Rider NMB bills the net kilowatt hours supplied in the month, so exports offset what you buy at the full retail rate. Whatever is left over after that is bought at 4.53 cents, and a $22 minimum bill plus $0.99 per kilowatt of nameplate sits underneath the bill no matter what you generate. Netting is monthly, not annual, so there is no bank to carry forward. Anything above your own monthly usage is settled at the Net Excess Energy Credit rate in the same bill.
What does Duke Carolinas pay for power sent back to the grid?
Retail inside the month, a few cents outside it.
Do I need a battery with Duke Carolinas?
Not for the economics. Duke Carolinas 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 Duke Carolinas bill?
Sign in at duke-energy.com. Open My Account, then Billing & Payment. Open View 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.
Is there a deadline for Duke Carolinas customers?
Rider NMB is the one that nets your whole month against the retail rate, and it closes on 1 January 2027. Duke Carolinas must have a valid interconnection application in before then. It can also close sooner: new participation is capped each year and reserved first come, first served. After it closes the only rooftop option is Rider RSC, which forces you onto a time of use rate with critical peak pricing and nets each pricing period separately.
What is the catch with Duke Carolinas?
A $22 minimum bill and $0.99 for every kilowatt of nameplate sit under this bill every month, and your credits cannot touch either of them. Ask in writing which rider the quote assumes, because NMB and RSC produce different bills from the same array, and ask what you pay in a month when the energy nets to zero. Size the array to what the house uses rather than to what the roof holds: the kilowatt hours you use yourself are worth the retail rate, and the surplus beyond that is worth 4.53 cents.