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Net Metering Program
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Unitil net metering in New Hampshire

Parts of the Seacoast and the Capital area, including Exeter and Concord. Higher retail rates than Eversource, about 26.5 cents per kWh all in at September 2026 rates against Eversource’s 25.9, so each kilowatt hour your panels save you from buying is worth more.

Type
Investor owned
Accounts
80K

What they credit you

Supply plus transmission plus a quarter of distribution

Published terms

Exports net against imports within each month. A month’s surplus is credited at 100% of supply, 100% of transmission and 25% of distribution, near 80% of the retail rate at August 2026 rates, locked through 2040.

Month to month
Credits carry against the bill.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-05 · source

Installers serving Unitil 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 Unitil 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 Unitil bill

An average New Hampshire 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$167.19
$167.19
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 41753 kilowatt hours. A 619 kilowatt hour month against 792 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 173 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $167.19 to $0.00 at 27.01 cents per kilowatt hour.

New Hampshire average household use, 619 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 27.01¢ 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.

Unitil requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in Unitil territory.

Unitil 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 Unitil 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. New Hampshire limits residential and small commercial systems to 100 kW AC, far above what a house needs, and credits any monthly surplus at near 80% of retail. The binding constraint is your own usage, not the rule. Unitil sets its own limits. Ask Unitil 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 Unitil 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

Check the three components against your own bill, and confirm the current values with the utility. The formula is fixed; the components underneath it are not.

What Unitil 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
$16.22 a month, and the tariff makes that the floor
How it is set
Schedule R sets a Customer Charge of $16.22 a meter and states the floor in one line: “The minimum charge per month, or fraction thereof, shall be the Customer Charge.” That is the Twentieth Revised Page 48, effective 1 September 2026, after the Commission set permanent rates in Unitil’s rate case; the temporary-rate supplement used during the case has been deleted. The optional whole-house time-of-use rate carries the same $16.22. Per kilowatt hour, Unitil’s September 2026 summary lists delivery at 11.372 cents, the System Benefits Charge at 0.778 cents and fixed energy service at 14.348 cents for August 2026 to January 2027, about 26.5 cents in all. Unitil’s tariff index lists no net metering schedule of its own; its terms point to the state’s net metering rules, Chapter En 900. Ask Unitil in writing which charges it bills on everything you import, as Eversource and Liberty both name theirs.

Unitil Energy Systems, Inc., NHPUC No. 3 – Electricity Delivery: Schedule R, Twentieth Revised Page 48, effective 1 September 2026 (Order No. 28,246 in DE 26-011); Schedule TOU-R, Fifth Revised Page 50-B; Supplement No. 2, Eleventh Revised Page 1 (temporary rates deleted, effective 1 May 2026); Residential Electric Rates summary effective 1 September 2026 · checked 2026-10-01 · source

Applying to Unitil

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

The credit is a published formula
Under Docket DE 16-576 a month’s net surplus is credited at 100% of the supply component, plus 100% of transmission, plus 25% of distribution. Within the month, what you export simply offsets what you import. You can check it against your own bill line by line.
On the surplus, that comes to about 80% of retail
At August 2026 rates the surplus credit works out to about 20.1 cents a kWh at Eversource against 25.9 cents to buy, and about 23.0 cents at Liberty against 28.7 cents. The figure of 84 to 85% once reported no longer holds, so size the system to use most of its output within the month.
It is locked until 1 January 2041
The formula holds through that date, so a system connected today has a defined credit structure for fifteen years and more. Very few states offer that much certainty.
100 kW AC is the residential ceiling
Far above what a house needs, so New Hampshire’s rule is not what limits your system.
Ask for the three components separately
Because the credit is built from supply, transmission and distribution, you can verify a quote by reading those three lines off your own bill. Very few states let you check the arithmetic yourself.

From Unitil’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-05 · source

Unitil net metering questions

Does Unitil offer one for one net metering?
No. Exports net against imports within each month. A month’s surplus is credited at 100% of supply, 100% of transmission and 25% of distribution, near 80% of the retail rate at August 2026 rates, locked through 2040.
What does Unitil pay for power sent back to the grid?
Supply plus transmission plus a quarter of distribution. Credits carry against the bill.
Do I need a battery with Unitil?
Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because Unitil 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 Unitil territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my Unitil bill?
Sign in at unitil.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 Unitil?
Check the three components against your own bill, and confirm the current values with the utility. The formula is fixed; the components underneath it are not.