Solar Panel Cost in West Virginia (2026)

Net metering: Reduced export crediting at both large utilities, with grandfathering

West Virginia has moved away from full one-to-one net metering, and the two large utilities did so on different timetables, so the first thing to establish is which utility serves you and what date your paperwork carries. Appalachian Power set March 1, 2026 as the deadline for filing a net metering application to fall under full retail one-to-one crediting, with orders of completion required by September 1, 2026 for residential systems. Systems outside that window earn around 12.4 cents per kWh for generation, roughly 67 to 75 percent of the full retail rate. Appalachian Power had filed with the Public Service Commission in 2025 proposing a reduction of approximately two-thirds of full retail value, so the outcome landed less severely than the proposal. Monongahela Power and Potomac Edison moved earlier and further: customers installing from January 1, 2025 earn 9.3 cents per kWh for excess solar credits, while customers who signed up before December 31, 2024 were grandfathered into the previous, more favourable rates for 25 years. Twenty-five years is close to the working life of a system, so those customers are largely unaffected. The practical consequences are the same in both territories. Electricity you consume at the moment it is generated still offsets a purchase at the full retail rate, so self-consumption is now worth more than export in a way it was not under one-to-one crediting. And when buying a home with an existing array, the sign-up date determines which tier the account is on and is worth more than anything else you can learn about the system.