Increased Uncertainty for Consumers
Maddy Yozwiak is the regulatory research manager at Vote Solar, a non-profit advancing solar access at the state-level nationwide.
Several states — such as Nevada, Arizona and Utah — recently replaced their net metering policies with a construct called net billing. The customer pays the normal retail rate for any net imports, and is credited at a second rate for any net exports.
While much of the debate centered on the value of this export rate — is it at, above, or below retail? — the new policies also changed a second, less obvious aspect of net metering: the ‘netting period’ over which net exports or imports are determined.
The ‘net’ in net metering and net billing indicates that a customer is only charged on the difference between their total imports and exports for a period of time. For example: I import ten, I export seven, and I’m charged for three. The ‘netting period’ simply defines when this subtraction occurs.
For net metering, the imports and exports are traditionally netted at the end of each month. For the new net billing arrangements, however, utilities have proposed reconciling the two at much shorter intervals — every hour, fifteen minutes, or even instantly.