The rules you have read about are not your rules
The Net Billing Tariff took effect for new applications on 15 April 2023 under CPUC decision D.22-12-056, and it compensates exports using Avoided Cost Calculator values, which sit well below retail rates. It is the reason recent California solar advice emphasises batteries and self-consumption so heavily.
The CPUC page setting out those rules states that its content applies in the territories of the large electric investor-owned utilities, naming PG&E, SCE and SDG&E. Publicly owned utilities are outside it and set their own policies.
Glendale Water and Power is one of those publicly owned utilities. So the export collapse that reshaped solar economics across most of the state did not happen to your account by operation of that tariff.
What it did or did not do instead is a question for Glendale Water and Power, not for a statewide article. That distinction is the single most useful thing to carry into a quote conversation here.
Get the terms in writing before you model anything
We are not going to state a Glendale export rate, because the figures in circulation come from installer marketing rather than from the utility, and an export rate is too important to take second hand.
Ask Glendale Water and Power directly for its current net metering or interconnection terms: what exported energy is credited at, on what basis that rate is set, whether credits roll over or expire, and whether there is an annual true-up.
Ask two further questions that matter specifically because this is a municipal utility. How long is any rate you are quoted guaranteed for, and what process would be followed to change it? A city utility can revise terms on its own timetable rather than through a regulatory proceeding.
Then ask your installer which terms their projection assumed and where they got them. An installer who works mostly in Southern California Edison territory nearby may carry Net Billing Tariff assumptions across without noticing, which would understate your return rather than overstate it.
What holds regardless of the answer
Self-consumption is worth your retail rate under any arrangement. Electricity used in the moment it is generated avoids a purchase, and no export policy changes that, so it is the stable part of the return while you are establishing the rest.
That makes it safe to design around daytime consumption even before you have the export terms in hand. Sizing against your own daylight draw is the conservative approach and it does not depend on the unknown.
It also means a battery is worth pricing but not assuming. Under retail-rate crediting storage adds less than it does under the Net Billing Tariff, so the case depends entirely on the answer you get from the utility.
Ask for the system modelled two ways, once assuming generous export crediting and once assuming very little. If the project only works under the generous assumption, you have learned something important before signing.
The federal change, and the state provisions
The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after 31 December 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now receives no federal credit. This is the most common error in current California quotes.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners, so a lease or power purchase agreement provider may claim it and reflect some of that value in the rate they offer. Ask them to show the comparison rather than assert it.
The California Active Solar Energy System Exclusion keeps the added value of a qualifying system out of your property assessment. It is a state provision and does not depend on which utility serves you.
The Self-Generation Incentive Program is the state mechanism toward storage. Confirm current availability with the administering body, and confirm your tax position with a tax advisor rather than with sales material.