Utah's solar export credit in 2026: 4.855 and 4.033 cents, the March reset, and an 8 kW bill month by month

Sheet 137.3 and its four neighbors: what the tariff text commits to

Schedule 137, Net Billing Service, runs five sheets in Rocky Mountain Power's Utah tariff (P.S.C.U. No. 52). Only one changes in the annual update. Sheet 137.3 carries the two export credit rates and the special conditions that govern fees, credits and expiry. Its First Revision is stamped filed January 26, 2026 and effective March 1, 2026, issued under Docket 26-035-T03, and the Public Service Commission of Utah approved it as filed in a letter dated February 23, 2026.

The other four sheets are a trap for anyone copying a date. In the tariff book Rocky Mountain Power filed on May 9, 2025, sheets 137.1, 137.2, 137.4 and 137.5 are stamped effective April 25, 2025, the date the Commission approved the settlement in the general rate case, Docket 24-035-04, and none of them was among the sheets revised in the August 5, 2026 compliance filing. That April 2025 stamp is not the date of the export rate. The date of the rate is the one printed at the foot of sheet 137.3.

Two older schedules sit beside it, and a home on either keeps its own terms. Schedule 135, Net Metering Service, closed to new applications on November 15, 2017 and runs to December 31, 2035. Schedule 136, the Transition Program for Customer Generators, closed on October 31, 2020, runs to December 31, 2032, and nets exports against consumption within each 15-minute interval. Neither is priced by sheet 137.3. If your interconnection agreement says Net Billing Service, you are on 137; if it says Net Metering or Transition Program, read that schedule's own sheets instead.

The interval detail matters for the export-volume figure in a later section, because Rocky Mountain Power's own filing says it does not install metering that can capture interval data for Schedule 137 customers. The export profile it uses to set the rate comes from customers enrolled in Schedule 136.

Every annual reset since 2022, with the Commission letter behind each

The rate is not set in a rate case. It is recalculated once a year by a formula the Commission approved in Docket 17-035-61, and a routine update is filed as an advice letter: a notice of intent with the inputs by December 1, the tariff sheet in late January, comments in February, and a target effective date of March 1. The Commission's approval letter each February is the document that fixes the pair, and five of those letters give the whole sequence.

Two things follow from the sequence. The first is that a rate pair is a dated fact. The pair 5.636 and 4.745 cents was in force from March 1, 2023 to the end of February 2024, and a page that prints it as the current Utah rate is quoting the 2023 cycle. The same is true of 7.715 and 6.372 (March 2024) and 5.704 and 4.199 (March 2025). Each was correct on its date, and each was replaced by the next year's letter, which names the old pair it replaces.

The second is the size of the swings. Both rates now sit about 37 percent below their March 2024 level. The 2024 reset raised them 37 percent in summer and 34 percent in winter, and the 2025 reset took 26 and 34 percent back off. A payback built in 2024 on the 7.715-cent summer credit used a number that lasted twelve months.

What is inside 4.855 cents, and why it fell this year

Rocky Mountain Power's January 26, 2026 filing breaks the rate into four avoided-cost elements. The Division of Public Utilities checked each input back to its source and found no errors, and the Commission approved the result. The breakdown is the best guide to which way the next reset might push, because the capacity elements lean heavily on one measured number: how much the typical customer's export profile contributes during the hours of the top 10 percent of Utah load.

The parts add up as the filing says. Summer: 2.260 + 1.491 + 0.938 + 0.166 = 4.855 cents. Winter: 1.438 + 1.491 + 0.938 + 0.166 = 4.033 cents. The three capacity elements together are worth 2.595 cents in both seasons, which is about 53 percent of the summer rate and 64 percent of the winter rate. They fell from 3.041 cents, a drop of 0.446 cents. Of the 0.85-cent fall in the summer rate, 0.446 cents came from capacity and 0.402 cents from energy. In winter the energy element actually rose by 0.280 cents, and the capacity drop outweighed it, leaving the net 0.166-cent fall.

Rocky Mountain Power attributes the overall reduction mainly to a lower capacity contribution. A smaller average delivered volume per kilowatt partly offsets it, because the same capacity dollars are divided over fewer kilowatt-hours. The Division adds that many of the decreases result, at least in part, from lower historic prices in the regional Energy Imbalance Market, and it calls the filing complete and consistent with the Commission's 2021 order and with similar prior filings.

One caution about the export volume line. The filing says the export profile reflects customers enrolled in Schedule 136, measured over the twelve months ended June 2025, and that the company does not install metering that can capture interval data for Schedule 137 customers. For an 8 kW system, 778 kWh per kW is 6,224 kWh of exports a year, which is 52 percent of the 11,869 kWh that the PVWatts run below gives for Salt Lake City. Treat it as a regional anchor for the export share rather than a prediction for one roof, since it comes from a different tariff, a different sample and 15-minute netting.

The filing does not forecast. On the same procedure, a notice of intent with the inputs is due by December 1, 2026 and the tariff sheet at least 30 days before its target effective date, which has been March 1 in each of the cycles in the table above. No notice of intent for the 2027 cycle appears in the Commission's docket listings as of November 3, 2026, and nothing in the 2026 documents says which way the next pair will move.

The March 1 rate change and the March meter reading are different events

Two things happen around March, and they are easy to merge into one. The export rate changes on March 1 by the Commission's annual order. Credits expire at the regularly scheduled March meter reading, which closes the Annualized Billing Period. The sheet ties expiry to the regularly scheduled reading, not to a calendar date, so the exact day depends on the schedule of your meter and is rarely the first of the month.

The expiry rule is a single sentence on sheet 137.3: "All unused credits accumulated by the customer-generator shall expire with the regularly scheduled meter reading at the conclusion of the Annualized Billing Period." The Annualized Billing Period, defined on sheet 137.1, begins after the March reading and ends on the next March reading. For a new Schedule 137 customer it begins on the day service starts. A home that starts service in January therefore has a first period that ends at the March reading about two months later, and any credit earned in those weeks has until then to be used. Sheet 137.3 prints no payout, rollover into the next period or buyback for a balance left at the reading.

Credits are tracked in dollars. Condition 3 says the credit value in dollars is applied against the Power and Energy Charges and that excess credits carry over, so a balance banked at the 4.033-cent winter rate is not repriced when a new rate takes effect. What the sheet does not say is how a bill that straddles March 1 is split between the old and new pair. The rate is stated by billing month, and the sheet gives no proration rule. If a bill covers days on both sides of March 1, ask Rocky Mountain Power which pair applied to which days before assuming either.

Because the period is annual, the order of the months matters. In the examples below, spring has the largest export surplus and the smallest bills, so credits can bank in April and May while summer imports draw them down. Credits go unused when the credit earned late in the period outruns the energy charges still to come before the reading. That can happen in a year when total credits are below total energy charges: credit earned in March cannot pay a bill from the previous summer. In the direct-use table below, the 70 percent row earns $216.58 in credits against $292.88 in energy charges and still loses $3.11 at the March reading. The low-use example after it shows the larger version of the problem.

What the credit is subtracted from: Schedule 1 after August 10, 2026

The export credit has no value on its own; it is subtracted from the energy charge on the same bill. For a single-family home on Schedule 1, Residential Service, the monthly bill is a $12.00 customer charge (single-phase, sheet 1.1) plus energy charges that step up after the first 400 kilowatt-hours of the billing month. Sheet 1.2 was revised in Rocky Mountain Power's August 5, 2026 filing in compliance with the Commission's July 31, 2026 order in the general rate case (Docket 24-035-04), with the new charges effective August 10, 2026.

Three points on the retail side shape how the credit behaves. First, condition 2 on sheet 137.3 computes the energy charge from total purchased energy for the billing period, so the 400-kilowatt-hour block is filled by what the home imports, before any export credit is applied. The credit then reduces the dollar charge; it does not shrink the imported kilowatt-hours that decide the tier. Second, the credit applies to the Power and Energy Charges, so the $12.00 customer charge stays on every bill however much the roof exports. Schedule 1 prints no separate minimum bill, so the example below treats that $12.00 as the "minimum monthly amount" that sheet 137.3 says is billed regardless.

Third, the base charges are not the whole bill. Sheet 80 lists seven adjustment schedules (91, 92, 94, 97, 98, 193 and 198) that apply to Schedule 1, and Schedule 92, the GRC Settlement Deferral Adjustment, adds 1.17 percent to the customer and energy charges of Schedule 1 for bills effective August 10 through December 31, 2026. The bill worked below leaves those schedules out, and taxes too, and uses only the base charges on sheets 1.1 and 1.2, so a real statement will differ from it while the export credit stays at its printed rate.

Sheet 1.2 also prints a Time-of-Use Option with its own energy charges: 33.6173 cents on-peak and 7.4705 cents off-peak in summer, and 29.7498 and 6.6111 in winter, with the on-peak window from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays other than listed holidays. Sheet 137.3 pays the same seasonal credit for every exported kilowatt-hour, whatever hour it leaves the house, so on this schedule the export side carries no time-of-day signal even if the import side does. The time-of-use guide measures how much solar output lands in a peak window under six utilities' plans, and EnergyBS covers time-of-use rate strategy in general.

An 8 kW home, April to March: the bill month by month

The worked bill follows one illustrative household through one Annualized Billing Period, April through March, at the rates printed on the sheets today. The roof is 8 kW DC, fixed, tilted 20 degrees and facing south in Salt Lake City, with the output taken from a PVWatts version 8 run (14 percent losses, DC to AC ratio 1.2): 11,869 kWh a year. The home's monthly use is a stated illustration, 10,150 kWh over the year with summer cooling peaks, not a Utah average. The panels are assumed to serve 40 percent of the home's use directly as it is made, and everything else they produce is exported. Imports are the other 60 percent of use. Each calendar month stands in for one billing month; real billing months straddle two.

The method for each month: energy charge = first 400 imported kWh at the first-tier rate plus the rest at the upper-tier rate, for that season; credit earned = exported kWh at that season's credit rate; credit applied = the lesser of the credit available (this month's plus any carried) and the energy charge; bill = $12.00 + energy charge - credit applied. Leftover credit carries to the next month and, after the March bill, expires. The no-solar column bills the same use with every kilowatt-hour imported.

The year closes at $392.42 with solar against $1,208.16 without, a difference of $815.74. Of the $591.23 in energy charges on imports, the credit cancels $342.81, 58 percent, and the rest of the bill is the 12 customer charges of $12.00 plus $248.42 of energy that the panels did not cover. The average exported kilowatt-hour realized 4.39 cents, which is the blend of the two seasons' rates, while the imports that remained cost an average of 9.71 cents before credit. No credit expired in this year; the only balance carried between bills was $3.05 from May into June.

The seasons behave differently. In April, May and March, exports run well above imports and the credit covers most or all of the energy charge (April: $33.94 of energy against $33.51 of credit, a bill of $12.42; in May the credit exceeds the charge and $3.05 carries into June). In December and January, panel output falls to 535 and 598 kWh against a use of 900 and 950, so the home exports little and the winter bills of $55.29 and $56.87 are still 54 and 53 percent of the no-solar ones. July is the dearest summer month at $45.56: it imports 690 kWh, of which 290 fall in the upper tier at 12.5263 cents, while its credit stays at 4.855.

The household and roof are illustrations, and the retail bill carries adjustment schedules and taxes that this example omits, so read the totals as a method rather than a forecast. The model is built to be rerun: swap in the monthly kWh from a bill, the output from your own PVWatts run, and the direct-use share from your installer's production model, and the same steps give your own year.

A kilowatt-hour used at home instead of exported: about 6.5 cents in this model

The direct-use share is the least certain input, so the same year was run at four values. A higher share means the panels serve more of the home's own load as they produce, whether from daytime use, scheduling flexible loads such as a water heater or EV charger, or a battery that charges at midday and serves the evening.

Moving from 40 to 55 percent direct use shifts 1,523 kWh from export to self-use and adds $99.51 to the yearly saving, which is 6.54 cents per shifted kilowatt-hour. That figure is the retail energy charge avoided (between 8.7 and 12.5 cents depending on month and tier) minus the export credit given up (4.0 or 4.9 cents). It is the number to use when someone offers a battery, a timer or a load-shifting device, and the battery decision guide sets it against what storage costs.

A battery does not change the credit itself. Sheet 137.2 lists batteries among the renewable generating facilities, and sheet 137.3 pays one seasonal rate for all exported kilowatt-hours, with no time-of-day schedule, so on the sheet's wording a kilowatt-hour discharged to the grid at 7:00 p.m. earns the same 4.855 or 4.033 cents as one sent out at noon. The value of storage on this tariff lies in the imports it avoids. The 52 percent export share implied by Rocky Mountain Power's regional profile lines up with the 55 percent row, so the 40 percent base case is, if anything, the export-heavy side of the range.

Compare this to a full retail credit. If the same 7,809 exported kilowatt-hours were credited at the first-tier retail rate for their season, they would be worth $717.88 instead of $342.81. That gap of $375.07 a year is an upper bound on what the lower credit costs this home, since a retail-rate credit would itself exceed the year's energy charges and partly expire, and it is why the net metering explainer treats the export rule as worth more than another panel. California's version of the same shift, with hourly export values, is in the California net billing guide.

When credits go unused: the same roof on a low-use home

Expiry is a sizing problem, and it is easiest to see on a home that uses far less than the roof produces. Take the same 8 kW array and the same direct-use share of 40 percent, but a household that uses 5,000 kWh a year, with the same seasonal shape as before. Its energy charges are small, so the credits outrun them from April through November, and the bank is still full at the March reading.

The household earns $432.64 in credits during the year and can apply only $274.61 of it, because the energy charges on its imports total $274.61. The remaining $158.03, 37 percent of the credits it earned, expires at the March reading. The bill never drops below the twelve customer charges of $12.00, or $144.00 a year, so the saving cannot exceed $470.99, the whole energy charge, against a no-solar bill of $614.99.

A smaller system does nearly as well. Halving the roof to 4 kW on the same home leaves nothing to expire and a saving of $369.09, against $470.99 for the 8 kW roof. The second 4 kW of panels adds $101.90 a year while it wastes $158.03 of credit. That is the arithmetic behind sizing to the energy charge instead of to roof area, covered in the panel sizing guide.

The oversizing penalty can look different on a real bill because several things were left out: the adjustment schedules change the energy charges (Schedule 92 alone adds 1.17 percent through December 31, 2026), and a household that adds an electric vehicle or a heat pump later will use more of the credit. The mechanism is the same either way. Credit that cannot be applied before the March reading is gone, and the sheet gives no way to move it forward.

The 25 kilowatt limit and the interconnection review fees

The application clause on sheet 137.1 admits a residential facility with "a capacity of not more than twenty-five (25) kilowatts". The sheet does not say, in that clause, whether the 25 is measured on the panel side or the inverter side. The only defined measure is the capitalized term Installed Capacity, nameplate capacity in watts direct current on sheet 137.2, and the per-kilowatt fees below are written per kilowatt of installed capacity. If your design is close to 25 kW, ask Rocky Mountain Power which rating it applies to the cap before you sign, because a 25 kW inverter and a 25 kW panel array are different systems. A facility above the residential cap falls outside the paragraph that defines who the schedule is for.

The review fee is charged per application, is non-refundable, and sits on top of any charge under PSC Rule R746-312-13. The level your application falls into is assigned under Rule R746-312, and the installer or Rocky Mountain Power will tell you which level applies. Level 1 is a flat $60, and Levels 2 and 3 add a per-kilowatt amount on Installed Capacity.

On the Department of Energy's 8 kW benchmark system, priced at $2.95 per watt DC or $23,600 in 2024 dollars (Q1 2025 edition, still the latest on the page when checked November 3, 2026), the Level 1, 2 and 3 fees for 8 kW are 0.25, 0.37 and 0.74 percent of the price. The review fee is a small line, and it is separate from the city or county building permit, whose caps in California and Colorado are covered in the solar permit cost guide. Meters that belong to the same customer can be aggregated on request for $2.00 a meter a month (two to five meters) or $25.00 a month flat (six or more), under condition 11 on sheet 137.5; the extra meters must be on or adjacent to the customer's premises, measure only the customer's own requirements, share a rate schedule and be served from the same primary feeder.

Numbers to find on your own sheet and statement

• The interconnection agreement title: Net Billing Service (Schedule 137), Net Metering (Schedule 135) or Transition Program (Schedule 136).
• The effective date printed at the foot of sheet 137.3, not the stamp on the other four sheets.
• The export credit per kWh on your latest statement for the season, compared with 4.855 or 4.033 cents.
• The date of your regularly scheduled March meter reading, which is the day unused credits expire.
• The credit balance carried on each statement, in dollars, and whether it grows through spring.
• The rating, DC panel or AC inverter, that Rocky Mountain Power applies to the 25 kilowatt cap and to the per-kilowatt review fee.

What the export rate does to simple payback on a Utah roof

A bill saving only matters against a price. At the benchmark price of $23,600 and the $815.74 yearly saving from the first worked bill, the simple payback is 28.9 years. That calculation holds today's rates flat for the whole period, ignores panel degradation, includes no incentive of any kind, and uses a national modeled price, so it is a line to compare against and not a forecast.

Two inputs drive the answer more than any other: the price per watt on your quote and the share of output you use directly. A quote far below the benchmark pulls the payback toward two decades; a low-use household like the one above gets little from the second half of the roof. Utah's state solar income tax credit has expired (see the state credits guide) and the federal residential credit is not in any figure on this site, so the table above stands on the bill alone. The cost per watt guide explains how to price a quote against the benchmark line, and the break-even guide shows the wider arithmetic.