When California moved from NEM 2.0 to NEM 3.0, the value of exporting solar power to the grid dropped sharply. Homeowners who used to earn close to retail rate for their excess solar are now credited at a fraction of that under the new avoided-cost structure, which stretched payback timelines for solar-only systems.
Regulators redesigned the export rate to reflect the actual value of solar power at the time it's sent back to the grid — which is usually the middle of the day, when the grid already has plenty of supply. The result is that self-consuming your own solar, rather than exporting it, is now the more valuable path for most homeowners.
Instead of exporting midday solar at a low credit rate, a battery stores it and discharges it in the evening — covering the hours when you'd otherwise be buying power back from the utility at full retail price. For most homes, that shift is what brings payback timelines back in line with what solar-only systems used to deliver under NEM 2.0.
It also changes how we size a system: rather than maximizing panel count for export, we size the array and battery together around your household's actual usage pattern, so more of what you generate gets used by you.
Every home's usage profile is different, which is why we run this analysis individually rather than quoting a generic package.
Get a free, no-pressure quote sized around your actual usage — not a generic package.
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Solar Engineering