IMPORTANT MONTHLY UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
This month we’re highlighting the 2025 Net Billing Tariff (NBT) export credits, the closure of Hawaii’s Shift & Save pilot program, Illinois’s NEM changes, Eversource Energy’s rate name revisions, and our quarterly utility rate numbers.
California NBT 2025 Export Credits Now in Effect
The 2025 export credits for Net Billing Customers (NBT) customers in California that submit their interconnection agreements and receive their permission to operate (PTO) in 2025 are now in effect. We’ve written extensively on this update as well as how we handle this in ETB Developer using our NEM Programs feature. It is now incredibly easy to set up and model the NBT in your Energy Use Profile using the NEM Programs feature, with NEM Programs available for every possible NBT customer scenario.
Sign up for an ETB Developer 14-day free trial to start taking advantage of these powerful features and accurately model the NBT for your projects today!
Hawaii Electric Utilities’ Shift & Save Pilot Closes to New Customers
In February 2024, Hawaii electric utilities implemented Shift & Save pilot rates with new TOU periods. The goal of this pilot program was to incentivize customers to shift their energy usage away from the higher priced and higher demand hours in the evening to daytime hours when solar energy is more abundant. After one year in effect, the pilot program closed to new customers on February 1st, 2025. Customers enrolled in the program can remain on these rate schedules or choose to opt out at any time. These Shift & Save rate schedules are anticipated to be reintroduced to all customers in 2025 following a final determination by the Public Utilities Commission.
The Shift & Save rate schedules (ARD TOU R, ARD TOU G, and ARD TOU J) updated on January 1st, 2025. We will continue to maintain and update these rate schedules in ETB Developer for the customers that choose to remain on them, and we will be sure to create any new rate schedules needed following the PUC’s decision later this year.
Illinois Closes Retail NEM for Smart Solar Billing
Effective January 1st, 2025, Illinois is the latest state to transition away from retail NEM to “value-based compensation,” or Smart Solar Billing. The statewide policy shift affects residential and small commercial customers of the big investor-owned utilities like Commonwealth Edison, Ameren, and MidAmerican. Customers who installed solar prior to the end-of-the-year cutoff dates in 2024 are now considered legacy customers and can keep their retail NEM plan for the life of their system. New solar customers that enroll in 2025 will be placed on the updated billing plan with the following features:
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Excess energy exported back to grid is credited to the supply portion of the bill only
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Exported energy is valued at hourly supply rates that vary with time of day
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Indefinite bill credit rollovers
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Customers that install a smart inverter are eligible for a $300 per kW of generating capacity rebate
The overall result of these changes is a higher upfront value for a system with a reduced NEM benefit over time. We are already accounting for these changes in ETB Developer using our NEM Programs where applicable, and users can choose to model with the legacy retail NEM setup or with the new Smart Solar Billing configuration.
These changes to NEM are happening across the country and are increasing the value and opportunity for storage system installations in addition to solar. As the value of NEM credits decreases, the value that you can get from storing energy and using it instead to offset peak charges potentially increases. There has never been a better time to consider storage with your solar installation, and with Energy Toolbase’s ETB Controller and ETB Monitor products, you can be certain that you are getting the maximum value from your systems. Schedule a call with us to learn more about our product suite.
Eversource Energy Rate Restructures & RE+
We recently revamped our Eversource Energy (formerly known as NSTAR) rate schedules following the utility’s update. As part of this update, Eversource Energy consolidated, closed, and renamed rate schedules to match other investor-owned utilities in the region, and we changed our ETB Developer rate schedules to align with these new names. If you’re working with bills from before this update, then it might be confusing to align the old rate name with its new one. The following table can be used to match the rate name on older bills with the new rate name:
There’s a lot of exciting movement in the Northeastern solar & storage market, and we’re excited to share this update as well as other new features for our product suite with many of our users, partners, and fellow solar & storage enthusiasts at the upcoming RE+ event!
Last Quarter's Numbers
Our utility rates team enjoys sharing our progress with ETB users because much of it comes from user requests. Every utility and rate we add signifies expanding opportunities for solar and storage, and we think that is pretty neat! We quantify our last quarter’s successes below:
- New global rates added: 305
- Updated global rates: 1241
- New utilities added: 21
- 11 unique states
- 3 unique countries
- South Africa
- El Salvador
- Canada
