California's war on rooftop solar: A new bill could dim homeowners' energy freedom
With the help of favorable government policies and incentives spurring the expansion of solar deployment, California became a solar-friendly state for homeowners looking to save money while living more sustainably.
But now, the state is poised to renege on its commitment to solar customers with the potential passage of Assembly Bill 942, a bill that would repeal net metering rules that had previously grandfathered in homeowners who had already gone solar years earlier.
This May, the California State Assembly Commission passed an amended bill, known as AB 942, that proposes to sunset existing net metering contracts beginning in July 2026. Net metering is a policy that allows homeowners to send the excess electricity produced by their solar panels back to the grid and receive a credit for that energy on their utility bill. This practice is designed to return excess output to the grid, which in turn benefits local economies and reduces homeowners energy bills.
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All told, NEM programs have proved wildly successful at spurring solar adoption, with over 2 million households installing solar panels —, totaling 17 gigawatts. According to one industry study from M.Cubed, a solar and storage trade group, those installations have produced $1.5 billion in cumulative savings for all customers.
Net metering was first made available to Californians 30 years ago, and in subsequent years and revisions to the program, the state uncapped net energy metering (NEM) to allow new systems to produce more than a previously mandated limit of 1,000kW. While some of the other benefits of NEM were rolled back over the past few years, the program still greatly benefited solar homeowners.
If AB 942 passes it will be a different story: Existing net metering contracts (under NEM versions 1.0 and 2.0) would be voided once a home is sold or its deed is transferred. That home and its system would then be regulated under the most recent version, NEM 3.0.
According to the bill's author, Assemblyperson Lisa Calderon, AB 942's purpose is to address the financial shortfall of grid maintenance costs that are being covered largely by non-solar customers. 'Our energy bills are becoming increasingly unaffordable, and we must address this ratepayer inequity,' Calderon said in a recent press release.
The environmental imperative of renewable energy aside, a key motivation for homeowners who want to go solar is to save money.Of course, lower utility bills piques anyone's interest, and is one of the reasons reason net metering has become so popular in one state after the next – it helps homeowners conserve energy and money at the same time. But according to critics, California had already strayed from its original mission.
With the introduction of NEM 3.0 in April 2023, California swapped out net metering for a net billing tariff program (aka net billing), an arguably inferior system that substantially reduces the credits customers receive for sending excess energy to the grid, averaging about 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt hour. This is because the energy offsets are now valued based on the avoided costs to the utility company. In previous versions of NEM, the credits' value was equal to those deducted whenever energy had to be imported from the grid; a simple 1:1 exchange rate.
Should AB 942 become law, homebuyers would be unable to inherit the benefits of existing contracts under NEM 1.0 or 2.0. (Under these versions, net metering contracts have a 20-year term and are tied to the installations, not homeowners.) Instead, those contracts would automatically shift to NEM 3.0.
'People made huge financial decisions to put solar on their roofs, with guaranteed paybacks because of these agreements,' Jeremy Nicholson, CEO of Sunergy, a California-based solar installer, told EnergySage. 'Changing that midstream would be a huge disservice. It completely erodes consumer confidence. Whatever agreements you have in place, you need to ride out to the finish line.'
A key feature of those older agreements is the guarantee that one homeowner can pass savings onto the next. That alone is a huge selling point for buyers in a state like California where electricity rates seem to increase exponentially.
Assemblyperson Calderon, a democrat representing California's predominantly suburban 56th State Assembly district, claims AB 942 is a question of economic equity. Her office cites a recent study conducted by the state's Public Advocates Office, which claims that in 2024 alone net metering shifted excess costs totaling $8.5 billion to non-solar ratepayers.
'Without modifications, the cost shift will continue to escalate as retail rates for electricity increase,' according to the study. It's also worth noting that Calderon herself is a former long-time employee of Southern California Edison, a large investor-owned utility and understands how they operate.
While it is true that electricity rates in California are well above the national average—30 cents/kWh versus 19 cents nationally—the data for these figures comes directly from the utility companies themselves—an obvious conflict of interest. Other reports found different results: A 2021 counter study conducted by Solar United Neighbors denies the claim that cost shifting is hurting regular Californians.
'The utility's cost shift claim is false,' the Solar United report says 'Research on the issue concludes that rooftop solar more often provides a net benefit to all ratepayers.'
'Utility companies are forced monopolies, and what they're trying to do is get rid of the competition,' Nicholson says. 'An apt analogy is the U.S. Post Office versus FedEx, it's utility companies versus solar. We are the industry disruptor. And even with that competition, even with all the solar in California, rates have gone up over 50% in the last seven years.'
Large utilities have made the case that increased rates are needed to help offset the costs of upgrading the U.S.'s aging electrical grid. But that,too, has been called into question, given that transmission and distribution spending on the part of California's three largest utilities has increased exponentially in recent years while electricity usage has remained relatively steady. The conclusion many critics have drawn is that, as investor-owned businesses, the utilities are motivated more by profit margins and keeping shareholders happy than providing value to their customers.
'The claim here is people who went solar are placing an undue burden on the rest of consumers, but that's not a fluid argument,' Nicholson told EnergySage. 'It may have held water if consumption remained the same across the nation and across utilities, but demand has only increased … people say you can't see the future, but I disagree. Solar takes strain off the grid and gives resiliency to customers. It's not even an ROI or cost-saving argument anymore. This is insurance.'
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