What is NEM?
If you have solar panels or other generation installed on your home or business, enrolling in NEM essentially allows you to offset your monthly electricity consumption with your monthly electricity generation.
Your electricity meter tracks how much electricity you use from the grid, and how much surplus you sent to the grid. The difference between these two numbers is called net energy.
Your bill includes your net energy. Net energy is shown as negative usage when you’re a net generator and positive usage when you’re a net consumer.
SDCP automatically tracks your usage and generation each Time-of-Use period. We will credit or charge you each month based on your rate schedule.
With NEM, your electricity meter tracks how much electricity you’re consuming versus generating.
How Our NEM Program Works
Please note: enrolling in SDCP service has no effect on your current rate schedules, including tiered and legacy rates or participation in legacy NEM programs like NEM 1.0 or 2.0
Enrollment
For New NEM Customers:
Once you install your system, SDG&E will authorize it to start operating, and that’s it — you’re enrolled! We handle communication with SDG&E on the backend to ensure you’re enrolled.
For Existing NEM Customers:
Your transition to SDCP and our NEM program will happen at the time of your annual true up with SDG&E. This ensures that you don’t lose any credits. Transitioning to SDCP service has no effect on your current rate schedule, including legacy rates or participation in legacy NEM programs like NEM 1.0 or 2.0.
If you are an existing customer, you can view the schedules below to see when your account was or will be enrolled.
Monthly Account Adjustments
When you are enrolled in SDCP’s NEM program, you will continue to receive one bill from SDG&E for the transmission and delivery portion of your electric service. SDG&E’s electric generation charge will simply be replaced by SDCP’s.
Monthly account adjustments can help you to avoid large surprise bills.
If you are currently being served under NEM 1.0 or 2.0 and generate more electricity than you use in a given month, you will receive a credit for it at retail rates based on the Time-of-Use periods (e.g., Peak/Off-Peak) of your rate schedule.
If you are currently being served under a tiered rate system (e.g., DR) and generate more electricity than you use, you will receive generation credits at the retail rate of the total period value.
During months when you use more electricity than you your system generates, we will apply your accrued credits to help offset the cost. If your credits do not cover the entire charge, we will bill you for the difference.
Learn more about how monthly billing compares to annual billing in the “Monthly Versus Annual Billing Options” section below.
If you generate more electricity than you use, you will receive a credit for it at retail rates.
If you use more energy than you generate, you will be billed for it at the same retail rate.
True-Up and Net Surplus Compensation
At the time of your standard true up period with SDG&E, SDCP will also conduct an electricity true up for the generation portion of your service. We look at how much electricity you generated versus consumed.
If you consumed more than you generated, don’t worry — you won’t receive a big surprise bill thanks to our monthly account balancing.
If you generated more than you consumed, we will pay you for adding clean electricity to the local grid. We will pay you for that surplus electricity at the monthly Net Surplus Compensation (NSC) rate, plus SDC’s bonus incentive ($0.0075/kWh in addition to the SDG&E NSC rate).
If your net surplus compensation is between $100 and $2,500, per account, we will automatically issue you a check.
If your net surplus compensation is less than $100, we will carry it forward as a rollover to help offset future consumption charges.
View Example Vea un Ejemplo
Monthly Versus Annual Billing Options
Because most NEM customers in our service territory are net consumers (use more electricity than they produce), SDCP defaults NEM customers enrolled in our service to monthly billing. Monthly billing allows customers to pay smaller amounts each month rather than one large bill at the end of the relevant period.
NEM customers can elect to change to annual billing by filling out the form below. Annual billing may be preferable for NEM customers who are net generators in any month during their relevant period, as payment for a month of net consumption would likely be covered by subsequent months of net generation throughout the relevant 12-month period.
In both billing options, annual true up cash outs are based on the total cumulative usage of your account over the course of your 12-month relevant true up period. If you generated more than you consumed over the course of the year, SDCP will pay you for your excess electricity at the Net Surplus Compensation (NSC) rate offered by SDG&E plus SDCP’s bonus incentive of $0.0075 per kWh.
Please note that if you wish to update your NEM billing to the annual option, you will need to do so at the time of your true up before you have been billed for any SDCP charges. Also note that if you make this change, you will not be able to make another switch for a full 12 months.
