Xcel Energy net metering in South Dakota
Southeastern South Dakota, including Sioux Falls, Brookings and Watertown. Xcel’s Minnesota and Wisconsin customers have statutory or tariffed net metering. South Dakota customers do not.
- Type
- Investor owned
- Accounts
- 95K
What they credit you
Sell at 3.16 cents, buy at 13.655
Published termsXcel does not offer net metering in South Dakota, because South Dakota does not require it. Its rate book buys exported energy from a small qualifying facility at 3.16 cents a kilowatt hour while charging you 13.655 cents in summer, and the tariff requires imports and exports to be separately metered so the two never cancel out. Compensation also stops at 2,000 kilowatt hours delivered in any month.
- Month to month
- None. Xcel pays for energy received each month, less the metering charge, rather than banking credits.
Published terms · checked 2026-09-29 · source
Installers serving Xcel customers
Pick one. Only the company you choose receives your details, and only that company calls you.
These are real companies operating in Xcel 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 Xcel bill
An average South Dakota 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 reading falling from 41926 to 41649 kilowatt hours. A 994 kilowatt hour month against 1,271 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 277 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $152.68 to $0.00 at 15.36 cents per kilowatt hour.
South Dakota average household use, 994 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 15.36¢ 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.
Battery backup is mandatory
in Xcel territory.
Xcel 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 Xcel 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. South Dakota sets no rule on what an exported kilowatt hour is worth, so your utility’s filed tariff is the only answer. It does set rules on how you connect: a normal rooftop array is a Tier 1 interconnection, the application fee is $50, and the Commission forbids a utility from adding requirements to a Tier 1 request. Size the system around what your own house will use as it is produced, because that part is worth the full retail rate whatever the export rate does. Xcel sets its own limits. Ask Xcel 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 Xcel 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
Price the array on self consumption, not on exports. Every kilowatt hour your house uses as it is made avoids 13.655 cents in summer; every kilowatt hour that leaves earns 3.16, and the tariff separately meters the two so they never cancel out. Check the 2,000 kilowatt hour monthly export cap against the size you are being quoted, because anything above it in a month is uncompensated. Budget $3.75 a month for the qualifying facility meter on top of the $10.00 customer charge, and note the $300,000 liability cover, the twelve month minimum contract and the disconnect Xcel may lock open. Do not accept a quote that assumes exported power is worth the retail rate.
What Xcel 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
- $10.00 a month, or $13.75 with solar
- How it is set
- Residential Service, Rate Code E01 and E03, sets a Customer Charge of $10.00 a month for overhead and underground service alike, and states the floor in two words: "Monthly Minimum Charge: Customer Charge." Energy runs 13.655 cents a kilowatt hour from June through September, and 12.096 cents for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours in other months. A household that interconnects solar also pays the small qualifying facility metering charge — $3.75 a month on Occasional Delivery Energy Service, $4.75 on Time of Delivery — which takes the real floor to $13.75. The Fuel Clause Rider, Transmission Cost Recovery Rider, Environmental Cost Recovery Rider, Demand Side Management Cost Adjustment Factor and Infrastructure Rider are all applied on top, and some communities add a Surcharge Rider.
Residential Service, Rate Code E01 and E03, Section 5, Seventh Revised Sheet No. 1.1, effective 1 July 2026, Docket EL25-024 · checked 2026-09-29 · source
Applying to Xcel
What Xcel itself requires, as distinct from what the state rule requires. Read from its own published guidelines on the date shown.
- Imports and exports are separately metered and never net against each other
- General Conditions of Service, Small Qualifying Facilities: "All energy received from and delivered to Company shall be separately metered. On-site use of SQF output shall be unmetered for purposes of compensation." What your house consumes as the panels make it avoids the retail rate, which is the good part. Everything that leaves is a sale at the qualifying facility rate. There is no netting and no bank.
- The export rate is 3.16 cents against a retail rate of 13.655
- Occasional Delivery Energy Service, Rate Code E50: "Energy Payment per kWh $0.0316". The Residential Service schedule charges 13.655 cents a kilowatt hour June through September and 12.096 cents for the first 1,000 in other months. You sell at under a quarter of what you buy at.
- Exports above 2,000 kilowatt hours in a month are not paid for at all
- E50, term 2: "Compensation for energy delivered to Company is limited to payment for a maximum 2,000 kWh delivered per month. Delivery of energy to Company in excess of this limit will be uncompensated." A large array on a low use house can cross that line in a good month and hand over the surplus for nothing. Check the cap against the system size you are quoted.
- A metering charge that exists only because you installed solar
- E50 sets a "Metering Charge for Single Phase Service per Month $3.75"; the time of delivery alternative, E52, charges $4.75. That sits on top of the $10.00 residential customer charge and is payable whether the sun shines or not.
- The time of delivery option pays more, and its capacity payment has a test solar is ill suited to pass
- E52 pays $0.0397 on peak and $0.0272 off peak, on peak running 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday excluding seven named holidays. Its capacity payment of $0.0082 per on peak kilowatt hour is made only where "an on peak capacity factor of at least 65%" was achieved, measured as your average on peak delivery divided by your own largest 15 minute delivery in the same billing period. That is a test of how flat your output is, and solar output is not flat. Ask Xcel whether a rooftop customer has ever been paid it.
- Three hundred thousand dollars of cover, twelve months minimum, and a disconnect they may lock open
- General Conditions: liability insurance "at least $300,000 per occurrence" with 90 day written notice of any change; "The minimum contracted term of service is 12 months"; and a Company approved disconnect which "shall have unrestricted access at all times without prior notice by Company personnel and shall be lockable in open position by Company." The rates are current, but these conditions are original sheets from Docket EL96-025, effective 16 December 1996.
- There is no state net metering policy, and that was deliberate
- The Legislature has considered mandatory net metering a number of times and concluded it is not in the public interest. This is not a gap waiting to be filled.
- There is a state interconnection rule, even though there is no state payment rule
- Administrative Rule 20:10:36 governs how a small generator facility connects to a public utility’s distribution system. It says nothing at all about what you are paid. Keep the two questions apart: how you connect is regulated, what you earn is not.
- A normal rooftop array is Tier 1, and Tier 1 has a floor under it
- Tier 1 covers a facility that is inverter based, "10 kilowatts or less", using lab tested equipment and not connecting to a transmission line. The fee is $50, and the rule states that "a public utility may not impose additional requirements to a tier 1 interconnection application." Above 10 kilowatts you are in Tier 2, where the fee is $50 plus $1 a kilowatt up to $500.
- Ask for the export rate as a number and as a commitment
- Two separate questions: what will you be paid, and for how long is that guaranteed. In a state with no compensation rule, the second question is the one that matters.
- Self consumption is the reliable part
- A kilowatt hour your house uses as it is produced is worth the retail rate no matter what any tariff says about exports. In South Dakota that is the only part of the return nobody can change.
From Xcel’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-29 · source
Xcel net metering questions
- Does Xcel offer one for one net metering?
- No. Xcel does not offer net metering in South Dakota, because South Dakota does not require it. Its rate book buys exported energy from a small qualifying facility at 3.16 cents a kilowatt hour while charging you 13.655 cents in summer, and the tariff requires imports and exports to be separately metered so the two never cancel out. Compensation also stops at 2,000 kilowatt hours delivered in any month.
- What does Xcel pay for power sent back to the grid?
- Sell at 3.16 cents, buy at 13.655. None. Xcel pays for energy received each month, less the metering charge, rather than banking credits.
- Do I need a battery with Xcel?
- Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because Xcel 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 Xcel territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
- How do I find my Xcel bill?
- Sign in at xcelenergy.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 Xcel?
- Price the array on self consumption, not on exports. Every kilowatt hour your house uses as it is made avoids 13.655 cents in summer; every kilowatt hour that leaves earns 3.16, and the tariff separately meters the two so they never cancel out. Check the 2,000 kilowatt hour monthly export cap against the size you are being quoted, because anything above it in a month is uncompensated. Budget $3.75 a month for the qualifying facility meter on top of the $10.00 customer charge, and note the $300,000 liability cover, the twelve month minimum contract and the disconnect Xcel may lock open. Do not accept a quote that assumes exported power is worth the retail rate.