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Net Metering Program
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Lincoln Electric System net metering in Nebraska

Lincoln and the surrounding area. Municipally owned, run by an administrative board; its rate schedules also carry a Lincoln City Council resolution.

Type
Municipal
Accounts
145K

What they credit you

Netted monthly; surplus at half the energy charge, plus a capacity payment

Published terms

Schedule RNM nets each billing period. Net use is billed at the retail rate; net energy delivered to LES is bought at the Energy Payment rate of the tier in effect when your meter is set, held for ten years. Tier 2 pays 50% of the current Residential Energy Charge: on the latest published sheets that is 3.91 cents a kWh in summer and 2.80 cents in winter, against 7.82 and 5.60 cents to buy, and never less than LES’s avoided cost. LES also makes a one-time Capacity Payment of $375 per kW DC for south-facing fixed solar, or $475 for west-facing or tracking arrays.

Month to month
Credits larger than a bill roll over to the following billing period.
Once a year
Credits remaining at the end of each calendar year are paid by check in the final billing period of the year.

Published terms · checked 2026-10-07 · source

Installers serving LES 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 LES territory, 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 LES bill

An average Nebraska 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$126.67
$126.67
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 41659 kilowatt hours. A 956 kilowatt hour month against 1,223 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 267 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $126.67 to $0.00 at 13.25 cents per kilowatt hour.

Nebraska average household use, 956 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 13.25¢ 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.

What your installer should be telling you

Tier 2 lasts until customer renewable generation reaches 5 MW, as LES determines, or ten years after it began on 31 December 2017, whichever is earlier. Tier 3 is printed “To Be Determined”, and the Capacity Payment ends when Tier 3 begins, so ask LES which tier your meter set date falls in. The rider closes to new customers at 1% of LES’s average monthly peak demand forecast.

What LES 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
$35.65, $50.15 or $74.15 a month, depending on how much you used last year
How it is set
LES builds its fixed charge from two parts, and the larger one depends on your usage. Schedule RS sets a Customer Charge of $5.15 a bill and then a Facilities Charge assigned by level: $30.50 at Level 1, $45.00 at Level 2, $69.00 at Level 3 or on three-phase service. So the fixed part of the bill is $35.65, $50.15 or $74.15. The level comes from your own history: Facilities Charges “are based on average monthly energy for bills rendered during the twelve-month period of December 1 through November 30”, with Level 1 under 800 kilowatt hours a month, Level 2 from 800 to 1,500 and Level 3 above that, reviewed every 1 January. A new single-family home starts at Level 2 until it has a history. That makes LES the one utility on this site where solar might lower the fixed charge itself, not just the energy charge, and it is worth asking before you size a system. The Renewable Net Metering rider says only that the customer and facilities charges “will be equal to” those of the ordinary residential class, and the schedule does not say whether the “energy” that sets your level is what you drew from the grid or what was left after your generation. If it is the net figure, a system that brings an average month from 1,000 kWh to under 800 drops you from Level 2 to Level 1, worth $14.50 a month on top of the energy saved. Ask LES which it uses. Energy itself is cheap here, 7.82 cents a kilowatt hour in summer and 5.60 cents in winter, so on most bills the fixed charge is the larger part.

Lincoln Electric System, Schedule RS, Residential Service, rate codes 01 and 03, issued 1 January 2026 under LES Administrative Board Resolution 2025-10 and City Council Resolution A-95459; facilities levels on sheet 2 of 2; Renewable Net Metering Rider · checked 2026-10-01 · source

Applying to LES

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

Every utility in Nebraska is publicly owned
Nebraska has no investor owned electric utility. Your provider is a public power district, a municipal system or a cooperative.
Retail inside the month, a lower rate on the surplus
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 70-2002(6) credits each kilowatt hour the system makes at the retail rate up to what you used in the billing period, and the net excess at the utility’s avoided cost of electricity supply. Each utility prints its own figure for that surplus.
Credits are dollars, and they are paid out
Under § 70-2003(4), monetary credits carry forward from billing period to billing period, and any excess is paid out with the final bill at the end of each annualized period, or within sixty days if you close the account.
25 kilowatts, and a 1% limit
The statute covers a qualified facility of 25 kW or less. A utility is not required to take new net metering customers once customer generation reaches 1% of the capacity needed for its forecast average monthly peak demand that year.
You keep the renewable energy credits
Under § 70-2004(4), the customer-generator owns the renewable energy credits of the electricity its system generates.

From LES’s published guidelines · checked 2026-10-07 · source

LES net metering questions

Does LES offer one for one net metering?
Yes. Schedule RNM nets each billing period. Net use is billed at the retail rate; net energy delivered to LES is bought at the Energy Payment rate of the tier in effect when your meter is set, held for ten years. Tier 2 pays 50% of the current Residential Energy Charge: on the latest published sheets that is 3.91 cents a kWh in summer and 2.80 cents in winter, against 7.82 and 5.60 cents to buy, and never less than LES’s avoided cost. LES also makes a one-time Capacity Payment of $375 per kW DC for south-facing fixed solar, or $475 for west-facing or tracking arrays. Credits larger than a bill roll over to the following billing period.
What does LES pay for power sent back to the grid?
Netted monthly; surplus at half the energy charge, plus a capacity payment. Credits remaining at the end of each calendar year are paid by check in the final billing period of the year.
Do I need a battery with LES?
Not for the economics. LES 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 LES bill?
Sign in at les.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 LES?
Tier 2 lasts until customer renewable generation reaches 5 MW, as LES determines, or ten years after it began on 31 December 2017, whichever is earlier. Tier 3 is printed “To Be Determined”, and the Capacity Payment ends when Tier 3 begins, so ask LES which tier your meter set date falls in. The rider closes to new customers at 1% of LES’s average monthly peak demand forecast.