Net metering

So she was talking to me about, you know, the opportunity to put solar up on there, and I asked her what it was for, and she said, "Well, just powering my stuff." So typically, if you're gonna put panels up for your property, unless you're off the grid, you know, you typically would ...

You, you go through a net metering process.

So for instance, if I wanna put up, you know, you know, uh, whatever it is, 2.25, you know, uh kilowatts of production, you know, um, that power goes back into the grid.

It's monitored, so it's, it's, it, you know, you know how much you're producing, and then you get a credit on your bill through whoever your provider is because that provider has to purchase that at whatever the market rate is.

McLeod Co-op Power's the biggest power provider in McLeod County in the rural area.

There are some Xcel Energy service territories out there.

So those are the big three, and those would be your providers that if you're wanting to do solar just for the purpose of you generating income or offsetting your bill, that's what they refer to as net metering.

You know, you'll work with your company, and then they'll help you establish that.

Really what it comes down to solar is you have an understanding with utility.

So it's called net metering.

That's with under the Public Utilities Commission, the PUC as we call it.

They are indicating that the utility has to achieve X amount of renewable streams of energy.

All of these things have to be negotiated.

Exactly.

But they don't have to be negotiated, really, do they? I mean, all of this is set by statute as to what net metering is going to be.

Is solar going to be able to sell power back to the utility at what price? I mean, that's all decided by government, isn't it?

And it's kind of worked out that utility companies that report to the state PUC follow that.

And other utilities, mainly municipal utilities that don't report to the, uh, PUC, they have their own board, they don't abide by the state constitution when it comes to practicing net metering.

Now, the term net metering has really been bastardized over the years.

There are certain utilities that call, oh, uh, NEM, net energy metering 2.0. Well, net metering is basically you pay the net amount of kilowatt hours that you use in a given month, and that was the original one.

So there's multiple definitions of net metering depending on what utility company you speak with.

So that makes it difficult for customers to understand, but also solar contractors.

Is it one for one, or is it not one for one? So the biggest utility, Florida Power & Light, since they report to the PUC, they offer net metering.

Well, that's not because they chose to do it.