Net Metering Calculator US — What Your Exported Solar Is Worth

The question this answers is what your solar is actually worth once it leaves the panels — and in the United States that turns entirely on a rule your state sets, not one the country does. A kWh you export is worth full retail in some states and a fraction of it in others.

So two fields start empty: the generation figure, which is per-location, and the export credit, which is per-state. The import rate is filled in at EIA’s national average. Supply the other two and the calculator splits your generation and prices each half.

Every field below is editable, and every default carries its source and date on the field itself — the defaults are a starting point, not a claim about your bill. We sell no hardware and take no installer commission; see how we verify.

6 fields on this page ship blank, on purpose

No source we can cite publishes these figures for US, so the fields start empty rather than pre-filled with something plausible. The calculator prints no result until you supply your own.

  • What one exported unit is worth ($/kWh) — There is no national US export rate, so there is nothing to default to. Compensation is set state by state and increasingly utility by utility: some states still credit an exported unit at the full retail rate (true net metering), others pay an export rate well below retail (California’s NEM 3.0 is the largest example), and a few offer no compensation at all. A single national number would be wrong in most of the country. Look your state up on DSIRE, then type the rate your own utility actually pays.
  • Units per month per installed kW — No figure is printed here for two reasons. NREL publishes the authoritative per-location tool — PVWatts, at pvwatts.nrel.gov — but every NREL host was unreachable from our research session on 9 August 2026, and we do not publish numbers we could not read. It is also the wrong shape for a national default: output per installed kW varies by about half again between the cloudiest and the sunniest states, so a US average would misdescribe most roofs. Run PVWatts for your own address, divide the annual kWh by 12 and by the system kW, and type it in.
  • Battery cost ($ per kWh) — No US source we can cite publishes a residential battery product price per kWh. Berkeley Lab publishes paired PV+storage pricing per kW of PV capacity — a median $5.3/W cash against $3.5/W for stand-alone PV — which is a whole-system installed price, not a battery price, and roughly 90% of that paired sample is California. Dividing the one by the other would turn a Californian system premium into a national module price. Type the per-kWh figure from your own quote.
  • Battery modules added to a new system ($ per kWh) — Blank for the same reason as the battery cost above: Berkeley Lab prices paired systems per kW of PV, not storage per kWh, and its paired-pricing sample is overwhelmingly Californian. For scale while you get a quote, its median residential battery in 2024 was 13.5 kWh at a 2-hour duration.
  • Price of one panel ($) — US residential solar is sold as an installed system, not as panels — the per-watt prices published for this market are whole-system prices including labour, inverters, permitting and margin. There is no verified national retail price for a single module, and quoting a distributor or marketplace listing as one would misstate what an American buyer actually pays. Use the installed cost per kW above instead.
  • Usable kWh per panel per day — Follows directly from the generation figure above, which we could not source because every NREL host was unreachable on 9 August 2026. Run PVWatts for your own address with your panel count, then divide the daily kWh by the number of panels.

No result yet — generation per kW, your tariff or the export credit has no published figure for this market, so there is nothing to calculate from until you type your own. That is deliberate: a number we invented would look exactly like a number we verified.

How this calculator works — the actual arithmetic

  1. Monthly generation = system kW × the units each kW produces per month, which you supply.
  2. That splits by your self-consumption share: the self-used part is valued at your import rate, the exported part at your export credit.
  3. The import rate is pre-filled at 18.44 cents, EIA’s US residential average for May 2026. The export credit is not, because it is set state by state.
  4. The difference between the two rates is what each extra percentage point of self-consumption is worth. Where a state credits exports at full retail the difference is zero and self-consumption buys you nothing.

Why there is no worked example on this page

No worked example, because both the generation figure and the export credit are reader inputs in this market. Any example we wrote would be an example about one state, presented on a national page.

The structural point survives without numbers: if your state credits exports below retail, self-consumption is worth the difference and sizing past your own daytime load stops paying. If it credits at full retail, the two are identical and the only limit is how much you will ever use. Net metering, explained sorts out which one you are in.

Sources for this market’s defaults

What this calculator does not know

  • Both the generation figure and the export credit are yours. The result is only as good as they are.
  • A flat import rate. Time-of-use plans, which are increasingly the default for solar customers, price the same kWh differently by hour.
  • Fixed charges, demand charges and minimum bills are not modelled, and they do not go away when you go solar.
  • Grandfathering is not modelled. Existing customers are often on terms new ones cannot get.

Frequently asked

How does net metering work in the US?

It depends on your state. Under true net metering an exported kWh offsets an imported one at the full retail rate, so the meter effectively runs backwards. Under net billing the export is bought at a set rate below retail. Several states have moved from the first to the second — California’s NEM 3.0 is the largest example — and a few offer no compensation at all.

Is net metering going away?

In some states it already has, in the sense that new customers are placed on a net-billing successor rather than the original scheme. Existing customers are usually grandfathered for a set period. Because the rules and the grandfathering both vary by state, this calculator asks you for the rate rather than assuming one.

Is it better to use solar directly or export it?

Using it directly, wherever the export credit is below the retail rate — which is the direction most states have moved. The gap between the two rates is what every extra percentage point of self-consumption earns you. Where exports still credit at full retail, the two are worth the same and there is no reason to chase self-consumption.

Why does this calculator not know my export rate?

Because there is no national one to know. Compensation is set state by state and often utility by utility, so any figure we pre-filled would be wrong in most of the country. DSIRE tracks the rules by state; put your number in and the split appears.

Guides that explain the numbers

How to calculate solar payback

The arithmetic these calculators run, done by hand.

Net metering, explained

Why what an exported unit earns is a state question, not a national one.

The federal tax credit

The credit sits on top of every installed-cost figure on this page.

Run these next

Solar battery payback calculator

Whether storage pays on arbitrage. Needs your state’s export rate and your quoted battery price — neither exists as a national number.

Solar system size calculator

Turn your monthly kWh into a kW system size and a cost band built on Berkeley Lab’s medians. Bring one number: what a kW produces on your roof.

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