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Net Metering Program
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Burlington Electric Department net metering in Vermont

The City of Burlington. A municipal utility, and the first in the country to source all of its power from renewable generation.

Type
Municipal
Accounts
21K

What they credit you

11.59 cents, or 7.59 if you keep your RECs

Published terms

Burlington pays the Vermont blended residential rate of 16.5864 cents, then applies adjustors. A new residential system of 15 kW or less loses 5 cents as a Category I siting adjustor, leaving 11.59 cents if the renewable energy credits transfer to BED and 7.59 cents if you keep them.

Month to month
Excess generation is monetized at the blended rate and credit carries forward to the following bill.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-29 · source

Installers serving BED 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 BED 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 BED bill

An average Vermont 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$140.29
$140.29
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 41766 kilowatt hours. A 574 kilowatt hour month against 734 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 160 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $140.29 to $0.00 at 24.44 cents per kilowatt hour.

Vermont average household use, 574 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 24.44¢ 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.

BED requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in BED territory.

BED 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 BED 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. Vermont sets your credit in your own certificate of public good, including the siting and certificate adjusters, so two identical systems can be paid differently. Read the certificate before you read the quote. BED sets its own limits. Ask BED 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 BED 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

Decide the renewable energy credit question deliberately, because it is worth four cents on every exported kilowatt hour and it is settled once, on the application. Confirm which Appendix A row your Certificate of Public Good application falls under, since the adjustors have worsened with every vintage and yours is fixed by that date. And check the 15 kW line before sizing: above it, a system not on a preferred site drops another three cents.

What BED 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
$10.97 a month, and the tariff states no minimum bill at all
How it is set
The Residential Service rate sets a Customer Charge of $10.97 a month. Unusually, BED’s tariff contains no minimum-charge clause anywhere — the RS sheet lists only the customer charge, the energy blocks and the Power Miser credit, and the operating guidelines say nothing about a floor. Energy is charged in two blocks: 14.4424 cents for the first 100 kWh a month and 19.7435 cents above that, which is why Vermont uses a blended rate for net metering rather than a single retail figure.

BED Residential Service (RS) rate, read alongside the Self-Generation and Net-Metering Tariff effective 1 August 2026 · checked 2026-09-29 · source

Applying to BED

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

Keeping your renewable energy credits costs you four cents a kilowatt hour
Appendix A prices the choice explicitly. For a system applying from 1 August 2026, the REC adjustor is $0.00 if the credits transfer to BED and ($0.04) if you keep them. On a 15 kW array that is a large annual sum, and it is a decision made once on the application form.
Fifteen kilowatts is the line between two different deals
A "Category I Net-Metering System" is one "that is not a hydroelectric facility and that has a capacity of 15 kW or less" and carries a ($0.05) siting adjustor. Above 15 kW a system is Category II or IV depending on whether it sits on a preferred site, and the unpreferred Category IV adjustor is ($0.08). Crossing 15 kW without a preferred site costs three cents a kilowatt hour.
The base is a blended rate, not your actual tariff rate
Compensation starts from the "Blended Residential Rate", currently $0.165864, defined as the lower of BED’s own blended inclining-block average and the weighted statewide average of every Vermont utility. Your own first-block rate is 14.4424 cents and your tail block is 19.7435 cents, so the blended figure sits between them by construction.
The adjustors have got worse every vintage, and yours is fixed by application date
Appendix A is a ladder. The Category I adjustor was $0.01 for applications in 2017 and 2018, $0.00 in 2021, ($0.02) in 2022, ($0.04) in 2024 and ($0.05) from August 2026. The row that applies to you is set by the date of your Certificate of Public Good application.

From BED’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-29 · source

BED net metering questions

Does BED offer one for one net metering?
No. Burlington pays the Vermont blended residential rate of 16.5864 cents, then applies adjustors. A new residential system of 15 kW or less loses 5 cents as a Category I siting adjustor, leaving 11.59 cents if the renewable energy credits transfer to BED and 7.59 cents if you keep them.
What does BED pay for power sent back to the grid?
11.59 cents, or 7.59 if you keep your RECs. Excess generation is monetized at the blended rate and credit carries forward to the following bill.
Do I need a battery with BED?
Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because BED 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 BED territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my BED bill?
Sign in at burlingtonelectric.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 BED?
Decide the renewable energy credit question deliberately, because it is worth four cents on every exported kilowatt hour and it is settled once, on the application. Confirm which Appendix A row your Certificate of Public Good application falls under, since the adjustors have worsened with every vintage and yours is fixed by that date. And check the 15 kW line before sizing: above it, a system not on a preferred site drops another three cents.