PG&E Solar Billing Plan: How Net Billing Works on a PG&E Account

PG&E’s Solar Billing Plan is the utility’s name for the CPUC’s net billing tariff, the rules most people call NEM 3.0. If your solar interconnection application went in after April 14, 2023, you are on it. PG&E puts you on the Electric Home (E-ELEC) rate, bills you monthly, and credits exports at hourly values that stay fixed for nine years instead of at the retail price.

This page is one part of our guide to California solar billing.

This guide covers who is on the plan, the rate you pay for grid power, how exports are priced, the export bonus, and how the monthly bills and annual True-Up fit together. If you are trying to read the NEM lines on an existing bill, start with what NEM means on a PG&E bill.

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Who is on PG&E’s Solar Billing Plan

The date PG&E received your interconnection application decides it. PG&E says customers who applied after April 14, 2023 are enrolled in the Solar Billing Plan. The CPUC says the net billing tariff has applied to new applicants since April 15, 2023, and that the utilities call it the Solar Billing Plan.

Older systems stay where they are for now. The CPUC lets NEM 2.0 customers remain on that tariff for 20 years from the date they interconnected. When that period ends, the account moves to net billing, but the CPUC’s decision says those customers do not get the export bonus described below. The same decision says a buyer of a home that already has solar does not get it either. For your own date, see when NEM 2.0 expires.

The rate you pay for grid power: E-ELEC

PG&E says Solar Billing Plan customers are automatically enrolled in its Electric Home rate, Schedule E-ELEC. PG&E built E-ELEC for homes with an electric vehicle, battery storage or an electric heat pump, and the CPUC’s net billing decision named it as PG&E’s eligible rate for residential customers. The peak runs 4 to 9 p.m. every day, weekends and holidays included. Summer is June through September.

Total bundled energy charge per kWh from PG&E’s residential rates table for March 1, 2026 to present. Customers of a community choice aggregator pay a different generation portion.

On top of energy, E-ELEC carries a daily Base Services Charge that PG&E introduced on March 1, 2026. The rates table lists three income tiers: $0.19713, $0.39688 and $0.79343 per day, or about $6, $12 or $24 over a 30-day month. PG&E says the charge lowers the price you pay per kWh on average. How it shows up on a bill is covered in reading the NEM lines on a PG&E bill.

The best PG&E plan for solar and an EV

For a Solar Billing Plan account the practical answer is E-ELEC, because PG&E enrolls you in it and its E-ELEC page does not list another option. It is also the plan PG&E designed for homes that add an EV or a battery.

The trade-off shows up at night. PG&E’s current table lists EV2-A at about 22.6¢ per kWh off-peak in every season, against E-ELEC’s 33.4¢ in summer and 28.5¢ in winter. An EV that charges overnight would cost less on EV2-A, but PG&E does not present EV2-A as a choice for Solar Billing Plan customers. Ask PG&E in writing before you plan around a switch. Both plans put the peak at 4 to 9 p.m., so a battery that covers those hours helps on either one. The PG&E time-of-use plans compared page lays out the rest of PG&E’s residential rates.

How PG&E prices the solar you export

Exports earn Energy Export Credits. PG&E splits each credit into two parts, Energy Produced and Energy Delivered, and publishes a price sheet for each interconnection application year. The value changes by hour, by weekday versus weekend or holiday, and by month. The CPUC says the original customer who interconnects under net billing keeps that tariff for nine years, and PG&E’s sheets set out the values for that period.

Here is what the 2026 application-year sheet shows for a few weekday hours, adding the two parts together:

The spread is the point. A spring midday export is worth a fraction of a cent, while a late-summer evening export can be worth more than the E-ELEC peak price. Some spring weekend middays show $0.00 for Energy Produced. The full hour-by-hour pattern, with 2023 and 2024 applicants alongside, is in NEM 3.0 export rates by hour.

One footnote on PG&E’s sheet matters for most of Northern California: Energy Produced credits apply only to customers who buy generation from PG&E. If a community choice aggregator or a direct access provider supplies your generation, PG&E says to ask that provider for its generation export pricing.

Checking your own export credits

PG&E’s how-to guide walks through it. Log in to your account, open Energy Usage Details, and use Day View, because the values are set by month, day type and hour. Hover over an hour’s green export bar to see the kWh sent to the grid. Find the same month and hour on the price sheet for the year you applied, then multiply the kWh by the Energy Produced and Energy Delivered amounts. The guide says PG&E would begin calculating the credits automatically in your account in September 2024, so this is a way to check its math.

The export bonus and how it steps down

To ease the move from NEM 2.0, the CPUC added a fixed bonus to every exported kWh, which its decision calls the ACC Plus adder. For PG&E residential customers it started at $0.022 per kWh, or $0.090 for CARE customers. The decision cuts it at the end of each calendar year by 20 percent of that starting amount until it reaches zero after five years. Whatever amount applies when you enroll stays fixed for nine years.

The CPUC’s summary: residential PG&E and SCE customers who apply to interconnect before the end of 2027 receive slightly higher-than-normal export credits for nine years. The bonus is not available for new construction, for customers moving over from NEM 1.0 or 2.0 at the end of their legacy period, or for someone who buys a home with an existing system.

Monthly bills and the annual True-Up

The CPUC’s net billing decision kept an annual true-up but requires monthly billing, so you pay each month. Credits still roll over for 12 months, and PG&E sends a True-Up Statement at the end of each 12-month cycle. PG&E says credits left after they are applied roll into the new cycle. Where those credits and charges appear on the page is shown in the guide to reading a PG&E solar statement.

If you export more energy than you use over a whole year, the CPUC’s decision kept the existing net surplus compensation method, which it calculates from average wholesale prices between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. over the past 12 months. The CPUC puts that at about 2 to 3 cents per kWh. What the statement contains, line by line, is in what a NEM true-up is.

Why most Solar Billing Plan customers add a battery

The CPUC reports that nearly 70 percent of net billing customers had paired a battery with their solar by the end of 2024. The PG&E numbers above show why. A kWh exported at noon in April earns under a cent; the same kWh stored and used at 7 p.m. avoids buying power during E-ELEC’s peak. Whether that pays back for your house depends on your usage and the battery’s price, which the NEM 3.0 battery payback guide works through. PG&E customers in wildfire-outage areas should also check PG&E’s battery incentives.

What to check on your own account

1. Confirm the program on your bill and the year your interconnection application went in. That year picks your price sheet.
2. Confirm you are on E-ELEC, and note your Base Services Charge tier.
3. Find your True-Up month so the 12-month cycle is not a surprise.
4. Look at which hours you export most. Midday exports in spring earn the least.
5. If a CCA serves you, get its generation export pricing; PG&E’s sheet covers only the delivery part for you.