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Understand Your Residential Solar Bill with Pioneer

Understand Your Residential Solar Energy Bill

Energy bills for homes with private, rooftop solar systems or residential solar arrays see different billing details than conventional residential energy customers. We’ve provided some details about billing to help you understand your residential energy bill as it relates to solar power generation, Net Energy Metering, electricity transmission, utility distribution and energy consumption.  

Pioneer Community Energy partners with PG&E for the distribution of customer energy bills. PG&E sends out monthly billing statements to Pioneer customers, with PG&E’s transmission and delivery charges and Pioneer’s electricity generation charges. Since PG&E collects payment from you on behalf of Pioneer, you only need to make one payment to PG&E for the total amount shown on your bill. There are never any duplicate charges on your bill and Pioneer receives payments for your electricity usage through our partnership with PG&E.

Benefits of Pioneer's NEM Program

  • Generation credits are applied at the retail rate against the electricity consumed each month.
  • Pioneer pays $.005 (1/2 cent) per kWh more than PG&E for any over-production sold back to the grid (Net Surplus Compensation Rate or NSC). See Pioneer’s current NSC rate.
  • Unused generation credits rollover, from month to month.
  • Pioneer bills for net electricity used, monthly.
  • Net Surplus Generators will receive checks during the March/April billing period if their credit balance for the past 12 months exceeds $25. Credit balances less than $25 will be rolled forward onto the next bill.

Pioneer NEM Enrollment Process

Eligible solar customers can return to Pioneer at any time. When a solar customer enrolls with Pioneer, PG&E will set the renewed annual true update to align with the transition date to Pioneer.

Net Energy Metering, True-Up and Your Energy Bill

PG&E bills for Net Energy Metering (NEM) transmission and delivery charges, annually, through its annual true-up process. The true-up process reconciles all the cumulative energy charges, credits and compensation during a twelve-month cycle, accounting for the energy your solar array produced and the energy your household consumed. 

Pioneer performs monthly reconciliation related to generation. Any unused credits are rolled over to the next month. If net consumption took place during the month, that is, if you used more electricity in the month than your private solar array produced, you would receive a bill, just for the net consumption. Once a year, the March/April bill, Net Surplus Generators receive a bill credit or a payout (if over $25) and at that time the balance is reset to zero.

An Example of Pioneer Community Energy Residential Bill

For more answers to questions about solar and Pioneer visit our FAQ page.

For questions or additional information on your solar energy production, net energy metering or anything about your energy bill, please contact your Pioneer Community Energy team by email at info@pioneercommunityenergy.org and by phone at (916) 758-8969.

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