NEM 3.0 Export Rates in California: What Your Solar Earns in 2026

Under NEM 3.0, California’s net billing tariff, your utility credits exported solar at a value that changes every hour of every month. Midday exports in spring earn almost nothing: PG&E’s 2026 price sheet pays about $0.0085 per kWh for a weekday noon export in April. Summer evening exports earn the most, about $1.15 per kWh at 7 p.m. on an August weekday. What you earn depends on your utility, the year you applied, and when your system sends power to the grid.

Below are the published numbers for PG&E, the examples SCE gives, how SDG&E splits its credits, the bonus that runs out after 2027, and what the pattern means for how you use solar. For background on the tariff itself, see the NEM 2.0 vs. NEM 3.0 comparison.

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How NEM 3.0 export credits are set

The CPUC says net billing credits exports at a rate reflecting the value of that energy to the grid, drawn from its Avoided Cost Calculator, which is usually lower than retail rates but can rise above them on late summer evenings. Its 2022 decision, D.22-12-056, has the utilities publish average monthly values for each hour, separated into weekdays and weekends, for each year’s group of new customers.

Those values are locked for nine years. PG&E tells customers to use the price sheet for the year they submitted their interconnection application, and SCE’s export pricing page lists separate sets for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 applicants, each fixed for nine years. After that, SCE says, the prices may change.

Each credit has two parts. PG&E calls them Energy Produced and Energy Delivered; SCE calls them generation and delivery. If a community choice aggregator supplies your electricity, the generation part comes from the CCA’s own pricing: PG&E’s sheet says its Energy Produced credits apply only to customers with bundled PG&E generation, and SCE says to check with your CCA.

PG&E export values for 2026

PG&E publishes a price sheet for each application year. The table uses the 2026 weekday values, adding the Energy Produced and Energy Delivered credits for each hour. Customers who applied in 2025 and 2026 share one set of values; 2023 and 2024 applicants share another.

Per kWh, Energy Produced plus Energy Delivered, from PG&E’s 2026 Energy Export Credit price sheets. Averages are simple means of the sheet’s hourly values, not weighted by when a system actually exports.

Two patterns stand out. Spring middays are nearly worthless, because the grid has the most solar then; averaged over 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., April comes to about a cent or less. And the value concentrates in a few late-summer evening hours: for 2023 and 2024 applicants, a September weekday export at 7 p.m. is worth about $2.52 per kWh. Weekend middays in spring run lower still, with some hours at or near zero on the sheet. The required E-ELEC rate, the export bonus and the True-Up are covered in PG&E’s Solar Billing Plan rules.

SCE export values

SCE’s Solar Billing Plan page gives 2025 examples by season. In summer, exports earn about $0.06 per kWh during the day, $0.21 in the 4–9 p.m. evening window, and $0.12 overnight. In winter, about $0.03, $0.09 and $0.10. SCE’s export pricing page has the full hourly files for each application year, built from the Avoided Cost Calculator approved as of January 1 of the year they were calculated.

At true-up, SCE says surplus exports beyond your annual use are paid at a net surplus compensation rate of about $0.02 per kWh. The SCE Solar Billing Plan guide lists SCE’s export rates by start year along with the TOU-D-PRIME rate, and the SCE NEM 2.0 and Solar Billing Plan guide covers the older program.

SDG&E: two kinds of credit

SDG&E issues Generation Export Credits and Delivery Export Credits separately, and says each can offset only the matching import charge. Neither can offset what SDG&E calls required charges, including the Base Services Charge, customer and meter charges, non-bypassable charges and fixed charges. At the annual true-up, if your exports exceeded your imports, SDG&E applies net surplus compensation rates to the excess instead, which it says prevents double compensation for the same exports. For the rest of the SDG&E rules, including the EV-TOU-5 rate and batteries, see SDG&E net metering and its Solar Billing Plan.

The export bonus, and its 2027 deadline

The CPUC added a temporary bonus to export credits for residential PG&E and SCE customers, called the ACC Plus adder. Decision 22-12-056 set the starting amounts at $0.022 per kWh for PG&E non-CARE customers and $0.090 for CARE customers, and $0.040 and $0.093 at SCE, with the adder falling 20 percent at the end of each calendar year until it reaches zero. Customers lock in the amount in effect when they enroll for nine years. SCE describes the current bonus as about $0.04, or about $0.09 for income-qualified customers, for those who enroll before 2028.

SDG&E customers don’t receive the adder. The CPUC says that is because SDG&E’s higher rates already produce more bill savings, and customers required to add solar under the building code, such as new construction, don’t receive it either.

What the export values mean for how you use solar

Compare the export numbers with what you pay. The California Public Advocates Office put the residential average rate in June 2026 at 33.7 cents per kWh for PG&E, 34.4 for SCE and 45.5 for SDG&E, excluding the Climate Credit. A kilowatt-hour of solar you use at home is worth roughly your retail rate for that hour. The same kilowatt-hour exported at midday is worth a few cents or less.

That is why the CPUC says customers maximize savings under net billing by adding battery storage, so they can use or export stored energy in high-value hours, and why it reports that nearly 70 percent of net billing customers had paired a battery with solar by the end of 2024. Without a battery, shift what you can into sunny hours: laundry, dishwashing, pool pumps, EV charging and pre-cooling. The battery payback guide runs the storage side of the numbers.