Vermont Pays New Home Solar 15.7 Cents a kWh. Regulators Call That 5 Cents Too High.

If you’re pricing rooftop solar in Vermont, the credit your installer is quoting has a target on it.

On September 9, the Public Utility Commission opened a rulemaking to rewrite net metering. It has already said, in writing, what it thinks today’s number is worth.

The number and the comparison

A new home system up to 15 kW, with a complete application filed between August 1, 2026 and July 31, 2028, earns about 15.71 cents for every kWh it makes beyond what you use in a month. That’s the 20.71-cent statewide blended residential rate minus a 5-cent siting adjustor, assuming you hand your renewable energy credits to the utility.

The commission’s September order sets that next to what a utility would likely pay a larger distributed solar project: about 10.5 cents. “Approximately 5 cents or one-third less,” the order says. The commission plans to examine “whether this cost differential is justified.”

You can guess where that lands. The May order already called the current total “still significantly high.”

The May order found the cost shift to customers without solar “material,” and said net metering raises the bills of people who are “unable or choose not to spend $32,500 on a residential net-metering system.”

It also has a grid problem. Vermont’s distributed solar adds up to 71.7% of its peak load, against 22.1% in Connecticut. There’s so much midday solar that the state’s peak has moved to after sundown. The commission wants to pay systems “based on the value they provide” and reward generation at the hours it’s worth most. Translation: another panel at noon is worth less than it used to be, and a value-based rate would say so.

That stings a little. It’s also hard to argue your neighbors should keep covering a 5-cent premium on your exports.

What it does to your math

Take every 1,000 kWh your system sends to the grid beyond your monthly use.

At 15.71 cents, that’s $157.10 in bill credits. At 10.5 cents, it’s $105. That’s $52 less per 1,000 kWh, about a third of the export value.

With the federal residential tax credit gone, which the May order flags, a payback that only works at 15.71 cents is a bet on a rule the regulator has said it wants to change.

Verdict: your call, but make the installer show you the math at the lower number.

What to do now

Ask for the payback twice: once at 15.71 cents for excess generation, once at 10.5. If it only works at the first number, walk or shrink the system.

Lock the right date. Your terms follow the day a complete certificate of public good application is filed with the commission, not the day you sign. Put a filing deadline in the contract.

Read the grandfathering promise carefully. The commission says existing systems will get a transition “based on the compensation structure that existed at the time they filed a complete application.” In May it also wrote that customers “have always been and will continue to be subject to future changes,” and that its 2016 changes reached existing systems after ten years.

Already have panels? You don’t need to do anything. File this away and watch Case No. 26-1786-RULE. The next public workshop is November 16 at 1 p.m., online.

Run your own numbers in the solar calculator, and see the solar hub and best solar picks before you sign.

The detail

Systems of 15 to 150 kW on a preferred site also earn about 15.71 cents. Bigger or worse-sited systems earn less: 13.71 cents for 150 to 500 kW on a preferred site, 12.71 for 15 to 150 kW elsewhere. Keep your renewable energy credits and you lose another 4 cents on every kWh produced. Utilities whose residential rate sits below the statewide blended rate credit less. Vermont has built more than 390 MW of net-metered generation.

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