Interactive tool
What is a kilowatt-hour worth? Solar export value by hour
Under California's NEM 3.0, the same exported kilowatt-hour can earn a fraction of a cent or more than a dollar. See when — and what a battery changes.
Two solar homes. One exports electricity at 1 p.m. on a mild spring day, when thousands of other panels are doing the same thing. The other sends stored electricity to the grid at 7 p.m. in September, when solar has faded and demand is still high. The kilowatt-hours are physically identical. Economically, they aren’t:
How to read the chart
- The black line is the export credit per kilowatt-hour for PG&E customers who joined the Solar Billing Plan (California’s Net Billing Tariff, often called NEM 3.0) in 2026, on a weekday.
- The yellow bars show when a typical rooftop system produces power.
- The red dashed line is what a PG&E customer on the E-ELEC rate pays for electricity during the 4–9 p.m. peak.
The mismatch is the whole story. Solar produces most when its export value is lowest. The value spikes in the evening, after production has faded — which is why a battery that stores midday power and releases it after 6 p.m. changes the math.
Where the numbers come from
Export credits under the Net Billing Tariff are set from the California Public Utilities Commission’s Avoided Cost Calculator: an administrative estimate of what an exported kilowatt-hour saves the grid in each hour of each month. There are 576 values a year (24 hours × 12 months × weekday/weekend), and a customer’s schedule is locked in for nine years based on when they applied. The values shown here exclude the temporary bonus credit for early adopters. Other utilities (SCE, SDG&E) publish their own schedules.
What it means
Paying low-value electricity less and scarce electricity more is a price signal. The open question is the other side of the meter: whether the retail price customers pay tells the same truth. Read the full explainer: California cut what it pays for rooftop solar. Did it fix the right problem?
Illustration only. Your credits depend on your utility, vintage, rate plan and usage.