Selling Electricity Back to the Grid in California: What You Get per kWh

In California you mostly earn bill credits, not cash, and the price per kWh depends on your tariff. New PG&E, SCE and SDG&E solar customers get hourly values: PG&E's 2026 sheet runs from under 1 cent at midday in April to about $1.15 at 7 p.m. on August weekdays. SMUD pays a flat 9.6 cents. Year-end surplus pays about 2 cents.

So “how much do I get for selling solar back” has four different answers in California, one for each system: the net billing tariff at the big three investor-owned utilities, the older net energy metering tariffs, SMUD's Solar and Storage Rate, and LADWP's net metering. This page gives the actual 2026 figures for each. For the retail prices these credits offset, see the California utility rate tracker.

Net billing (PG&E, SCE, SDG&E): hourly export values

Solar customers who applied to interconnect after the net billing tariff took effect in April 2023 are on it. Exports earn Energy Export Credits based on the CPUC's Avoided Cost Calculator: what the utility saves when your kWh replaces power it would have bought or delivered. The values change by month, hour and weekday or weekend. The set that applies to you is the one for the year you submitted your interconnection application, and the CPUC guarantees net billing customers the tariff for nine years.

PG&E publishes each year's set as two parts, a value for energy produced (the generation part) and a value for energy delivered. Here is a sample from its 2026 sheet, weekday values, both parts added:

The pattern is the point. Midday exports, when most panels produce most, earn a few cents or less; in April they are close to zero, and some spring weekend afternoons are listed at $0.00000 for the produced part. Late afternoon and evening exports in July through September earn far more, and PG&E's single highest produced value, $0.99821, falls at 8 p.m. on August weekdays. The CPUC sums it up: export credits are usually lower than the retail rate but can rise above it on late summer evenings.

Two additions. Residential PG&E and SCE customers who apply before the end of 2027 get a small export adder for nine years; PG&E calls these Energy Export Bonus Credits. SDG&E customers are excluded, which the CPUC explains by SDG&E's higher retail rates. And under net billing, bills are paid monthly while credits roll over and true up once a year.

Older net energy metering (NEM 1.0 and 2.0)

If your system was interconnected before net billing, you are probably on NEM. During the year, the CPUC says, exports are credited at your retail import rate, the same price you pay for power at that hour. That makes a NEM export worth roughly what SCE's time-of-use plans charge, about 24 to 74 cents depending on plan and hour. At the end of each 12-month cycle, any surplus left is paid at the Net Surplus Compensation rate, which the CPUC puts at about 2 to 3 cents per kWh.

SCE pays it as a bill credit or a check, but only if you opted in. How the year-end statement works is in our SCE annual settlement bill guide.

SMUD and LADWP

SMUD keeps it simple. Customers on its Solar and Storage Rate earn 9.6 cents per kWh for power sent to the grid, at any hour and in any season. Compare that with the 12.85 to 37.65 cents SMUD charges under its 2026 Time-of-Day rate, and self-use is worth more than export at every hour, most of all on summer weekday evenings.

LADWP still uses net energy metering. When your system produces more than you use in a billing period, LADWP credits the excess at your rate schedule's energy price, and the credit carries forward to later bills, except against taxes and minimum charges. If a credit balance remains when you close the account, LADWP sets it to zero with no further payment. The LADWP rate tables are in our LADWP rates guide.

What this means if you are deciding on solar

Under net billing, the money is in the power you do not buy, not the power you sell. That shifts the design question from “how big” to “how much can I use myself,” and it is why the CPUC points to battery storage for moving midday solar into the high-value evening. Our guides on net billing vs. net metering, whether solar under NEM 3.0 is still worth it and battery payback under NEM 3.0 walk through that math. For the import prices exports are measured against, see PG&E time-of-use rates and SCE rate schedules.