Net billing is not net metering
Under net metering, generation and consumption are netted across a billing period, so midday production offsets evening consumption within the month and an exported kilowatt hour is worth the same as a consumed one.
Under Schedule 137 Net Billing, netting happens instantaneously. Electricity your house is drawing at the moment the panels produce it simply is not bought, so it is worth the full retail rate. Anything beyond that instantaneous demand is exported.
Exports earn the export credit rate, which as of March 1, 2026 was approximately 4.855 cents per kWh in summer, June through September, and 4.033 cents per kWh in winter, October through May.
Against a Utah residential retail rate around 12 to 13 cents, that means the same kilowatt hour is worth roughly three times more used than exported. That ratio is the design brief.
What that changes about a good system
It moves the question from how much the system generates to how much of that generation your household absorbs at the moment it happens. Annual production alone no longer tells you what a system is worth.
It penalises oversizing. The marginal panels at the top of a design produce mostly surplus, and surplus earns the export rate, so each additional panel returns less than the one before it.
It raises the value of load shifting. Running the dishwasher, laundry, or an electric vehicle charger during daylight converts export-rate kilowatt hours into retail-rate ones at no cost.
And it raises the value of storage, because a battery does the same thing automatically and at scale. In a net billing state the economic case for a battery is stronger than the national conversation suggests.
The questions that expose a net metering model
Ask what self-consumption share the savings model assumed: what percentage of generated electricity it expects your household to use at the instant it is produced.
Ask for the savings split into two lines, value from self-consumed generation at the retail rate and value from exports at the export credit rate. A single net figure hides the assumption that matters most.
Ask which export credit rate the model used and whether it applied the summer and winter figures separately. Those two rates differ by nearly a cent, and Utah generation is heavily weighted toward the summer months.
If a quote talks about your meter running backwards, or about banking credits to use in winter, it is describing net metering. That is not the tariff you would be on.
Rebuilding the estimate from current figures
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase in Salt Lake City receives no federal tax credit. The Utah residential solar tax credit reached zero for systems installed from 2024 onward.
Section 48E, the commercial credit, survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements. Ask what a provider claims and what reaches you in the rate, and confirm with a tax advisor.
What exists is the tariff: full retail value for electricity consumed as it is generated, the seasonal export credit rate for everything else, and no tax credit at either level.
Ask any installer to rebuild the projection with those two lines separated, the self-consumption share stated, and the seasonal export rates applied separately rather than blended.