How the bill after solar is calculated: LADWP

Cali-Graf calculates the LADWP bill with solar the way the bills themselves show it — worked out from real LADWP bills down to the cent.

Each billing period

• Netting 1:1. In every two-month period, the kWh sent to the grid are subtracted from the kWh taken from it.
• Still a net usage? It’s billed like a normal bill on the standard residential rate, tier by tier.
• More sent than taken? There’s no energy to pay for; the access charge, taxes and the minimum payment remain. The surplus is valued at the full tier prices, as if it were usage, and becomes a dollar credit.

The credit

• It rolls forward to later bills with no end date, but LADWP never pays it out in cash.
• It pays only the base energy rates and the access charge — not the adjustment factors (ECA and others), not taxes, and not below the minimum payment.
• That’s why a system that makes 100% of the usage still leaves a bill.

In All numbers, LADWP net metering shows Credit carried after year 1 and Bill with solar, year 2, when the credit from the first year starts paying.

The access charge

LADWP sets it once a year from the past 12 months. In the first year with solar it stays at the level from before solar; from the second year it follows the home’s highest month of grid power with solar.

What it means for sizing

Credit that’s never used is lost value. If solar makes more than the home uses, the result says so and suggests how many panels could go — see Warnings on the results. A battery doesn’t lower an LADWP bill: Battery operating modes.