Florida Net Metering 2026: What Each Utility Actually Pays

Florida net metering is not one program. At Florida's investor-owned utilities — FPL, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric and Florida Public Utilities — exported power is credited at the full retail rate under Public Service Commission (PSC) Rule 25-6.065. Credits roll forward for up to twelve months, and any leftover balance is trued up at the end of each calendar year at the utility's avoided cost — as a bill credit, not a cheque. At the municipal utilities and cooperatives, the same kilowatt-hour can be worth full retail, the fuel charge alone, or something in between. In Orlando, the answer changes depending on whether your interconnection application was in before July 1, 2025.

This matters more than your panel brand, your inverter or your price per watt, because the export rate is the assumption underneath every savings number in your proposal. Get it wrong and a 25-year projection is wrong from the first bill. Below is what each Florida utility actually pays in 2026, taken from the rule, the tariffs and the utilities' own rate sheets.

What each Florida utility pays for exported solar in 2026

How does net metering work at FPL, Duke, Tampa Electric and FPUC?

These are Florida's investor-owned utilities, and the PSC regulates them under Rule 25-6.065, F.A.C. The rule was last amended on April 7, 2008 and has not changed since. The 2022 bill that would have phased down credits, HB 741, was vetoed on April 27, 2022.

The core mechanic is in subsection (8). Your meter measures both directions, and the utility installs it "at no additional cost to the customer." Each billing cycle, energy you export "shall be credited to the customer's energy consumption for the next month's billing cycle" — a full-retail, kilowatt-hour-for-kilowatt-hour swap. You also keep any renewable energy certificates your system generates, though a meter to measure total generation for that purpose is at your expense.

Why does 10 kW matter so much in a Florida quote?

The rule sets three tiers: Tier 1 up to 10 kW, Tier 2 above 10 kW through 100 kW, and Tier 3 above 100 kW through 2 MW. Those numbers are the system's "gross power rating," and for an inverter-based system the rule computes it from the panels, not the inverter: DC nameplate multiplied by 0.85. So Tier 1 tops out around 11.8 kW DC — and a 13 kW DC array is Tier 2 even if it feeds a 10 kW inverter.

Staying in Tier 1 is worth real money. Tier 1 customers "shall not be charged fees in addition to those charged to other retail customers without self-generation, including application fees," and the utility "shall not require liability insurance for Tier 1." Inverter-based Tier 1 systems are also exempt from the manual disconnect switch requirement unless the utility pays for it.

Cross into Tier 2 and the rule permits up to $1 million of liability insurance, plus a PSC-approved application fee. In practice: FPL charges $400 for Tier 2 and $1,000 for Tier 3, Tampa Electric $250 and $500, and FPUC $350 for either. Tampa Electric also requires $100,000 of liability coverage for a customer-owned battery of 1 kW or more, rising to $1 million above 15 kW AC — a detail that catches battery buyers who assumed Tier 1 meant no insurance. FPL requires three-phase service for systems of 50 kW and up, and a manual disconnect for all Tier 2 and Tier 3 systems.

The practical rule for a homeowner: if a proposal pushes you past about 11.8 kW DC, ask what it buys you. Sometimes the answer is good — a big all-electric house, a pool, two EVs. Sometimes the extra panels only exist to raise the contract price. Our Tier 2 insurance guide covers what happens when you cross the line, and how to spot installer markup covers the sizing games.

What happens to credits you never use?

Credits "shall accumulate and be used to offset the customer's energy usage in subsequent months for a period of not more than twelve months." Then, at the end of each calendar year, the utility settles up "at an average annual rate based on the investor-owned utility's COG-1, as-available energy tariff." In practice it is a credit rather than a payment, and FPL's two sources differ on timing: its net metering FAQ says the credit lands on your December bill, while its tariff sheet 8.940 says unused credits are "credited to the next month's billing cycle." Cash only changes hands when you close the account.

Here is the part almost nobody explains: COG-1 is not a fixed rate sitting on a tariff sheet. It is recalculated hourly. It is not secret, though — Rule 25-17.0825(4) requires every utility to file its actual hourly avoided energy costs, and the monthly averages, with the Commission by the twentieth business day of the following month, and "a copy shall be furnished to any individual who requests such information." Tampa Electric's tariff states that as-available energy "is purchased at a unit cost, in cents per kilowatt-hour, based on the Company's actual hourly avoided energy costs which are calculated by the Company in accordance with FPSC Rule 25-17.0825," and that those avoided costs "include incremental fuel and identifiable variable operation and maintenance expenses." FPL's tariff points to the same rule.

In other words, the December payout tracks what it would have cost the utility to generate that power — fuel plus a little variable maintenance. It moves with natural gas prices, and it is far below retail, because retail also pays for poles, wires, transformers, meters and everything else you are not avoiding when you export. That is the whole reason oversizing does not pay in Florida.

If you want the actual number, ask — and this is not a Tampa Electric quirk. Rule 25-17.0825(4) binds every Florida utility to file those costs monthly and furnish a copy to anyone who requests it. Subsection (5) separately obliges each utility, on request from a qualifying facility or "any interested person," to provide within 30 days its generation mix, fuel price projections by fuel type and "at least a five year projection of fuel forecasts to estimate future as-available energy prices," plus a 24-hour hour-by-hour avoided cost forecast. Those are forward-looking estimates, not the historical average that sets your true-up. Almost no homeowner asks for either.

What do you still pay when your bill nets to zero?

Subsection (8)(h) is explicit: "Regardless of whether excess energy is delivered to the investor-owned utility's electric grid, the customer shall continue to pay the applicable customer charge and applicable demand charge for the maximum measured demand during the billing period."

At FPL, that floor rose this year. The residential tariff effective January 2026 states that customers "whose monthly base electric service costs fall below $30 are subject to a minimum $30 base bill" — up from $25 in 2025 — alongside a base charge that went from $9.55 to $10.52 and energy at 7.865¢ per kWh up to 1,000 kWh. FPL's four-year rate agreement, approved by the PSC on November 20, 2025, took the typical 1,000-kWh bill from $134.14 to $136.64 for 2026 in most of Florida; the settlement itself says nothing about net metering.

At Duke Energy Florida the floor is also $30, but the arithmetic differs in a way that trips up quotes: the $12.45 customer charge counts toward the $30, so a net-zero home sees an adjustment of up to $17.55 to reach the floor rather than $30 on top of it. Duke says approximately 5% of accounts could see that adjustment — and solar homes are exactly the accounts that do. Worth knowing if money is tight: Duke's minimum-bill modification for income-qualified customers, running 2025 through 2027, is written for a customer "who is not also a net metering customer," so going solar forfeits it. Either way, a proposal promising a $0 electric bill is wrong. See FPL solar in 2026 and Duke Energy Florida solar in 2026.

How long does interconnection take?

The rule sets a clock. The utility must acknowledge your application within 10 business days of receipt, or tell you how it is deficient, and must execute the Standard Interconnection Agreement "within 30 calendar days of receipt of a completed application" — 90 days if a Tier 3 study is needed. You must return your signed agreement at least 30 calendar days before you begin parallel operation, and all physical inspections must be completed within 30 calendar days of the utility receiving it. That is the utility's side only; the local permit and inspection are a separate queue, which is why systems sit dark for weeks. See why your panels sit dark after install.

What do Florida's municipal utilities pay for exported solar?

Municipal utilities answer to their own governing boards, not the PSC. Florida Statute §366.91 requires every utility in the state — investor-owned, municipal and cooperative — to offer a net metering program, but it does not set the credit rate. That single gap is why the same rooftop is worth twice as much in one city as in another.

OUC (Orlando): full retail or about half, depending on one date

OUC's TruNet Solar tariff splits customers by one date. If you submitted a complete interconnection application, with payment, before July 1, 2025, your exports are credited through June 30, 2045 at the non-fuel base charge plus the fuel charge on your retail rate schedule — 6.783¢ plus 4.767¢ on OUC's October 2025 residential sheet, which sums to about 11.6¢ per kWh, excluding the conservation adder that applies above 1,000 kWh. Note that OUC's own rooftop-solar page describes the TruNet full retail rate as "currently 10.7¢ per kWh for residential customers," so confirm which figure your bill actually uses before you model it. After June 30, 2045 it drops to the levelized fuel charge.

Everyone who applied after that date is credited at the Community Solar Energy rate instead, defined on tariff Sheet 5.925 as "[Standard levelized fuel rate] plus 0.7¢ per kWh" — roughly 5.5¢ against OUC's current 4.767¢ fuel charge, about half the grandfathered rate — through June 30, 2030, and at the levelized fuel charge after that. OUC is running a temporary full-retail grace period until its billing-system changes take effect in Fall 2026 (its solar page gives October 31, 2026 as the date), and says it will true up remaining solar bank balances before the switch. As of this writing every OUC solar customer is still being paid the full retail rate — the split has not bitten yet, which is exactly why a system sized this month needs to be modelled on the rate that arrives afterwards.

So in Orlando the question "what does OUC pay?" has two answers that differ by a factor of two, and any proposal modeling 25 years of retail credits for a new customer is wrong. OUC also offers a battery rebate of $150 per kWh of designed capacity up to $2,000 — but taking it means forfeiting the full-retail export rate, which is a bad trade for a grandfathered customer and a reasonable one for a new one. More in our Orlando solar cost guide.

JEA (Jacksonville): the fuel rate only

JEA states that "customers who send energy to JEA will receive an energy credit at JEA's fuel rate" — the fuel component only, not the retail rate — with any year-end balance paid out. That inverts the design logic. In JEA territory a kilowatt-hour you use yourself is worth far more than one you export, so the system should be sized and oriented around your actual load. A battery becomes a genuinely financial decision rather than a resilience one. If a Jacksonville quote's savings projection assumes full retail credit, it is wrong on its face. See the Jacksonville cost guide and do you need a battery in Florida.

GRU (Gainesville): the fuel rate only — 3.5¢ on the FY26 sheet, adjusted monthly

GRU credits excess energy "at GRU's current fuel adjustment rate," which its FY26 residential rate sheet puts at $0.0350 per kWh — 3.5¢ — against a $17.00 monthly customer charge. Customer and demand charges still apply, and GRU's page states that even Tier 1 systems "may maintain" at least $100,000 of liability coverage. As at JEA, self-consumption is where the value is.

Lakeland Electric: full retail, but on a demand-charge plan

Lakeland offers net metering to residential customers with systems up to 10 kW, "credited back to the customer at the full retail rate." The catch is which retail rate. Lakeland bills rooftop solar customers on its Solar Price Plan, which pairs a demand charge of "$5.77 per kilowatt" — based on your single highest usage during peak hours — with a flat energy rate of "$0.02674 per kilowatt hour (kWh), regardless of when it is used," a rate Lakeland says "is less than half what you would pay on the standard plan." That is not automatically a worse deal: cheap energy plus a demand charge rewards a household that can shift big loads off peak and punishes one that cannot. It does mean a savings model built on Lakeland's standard residential tariff will not match your bill, so ask which plan you will be billed on before you sign.

City of Tallahassee: full retail, nothing carries year to year

Tallahassee credits full retail value "including taxes" for systems up to 100 kW — one of the better deals in the state — but "credits carry over month to month, but not year to year," and the city never writes a check. Note which year: Tallahassee says "the year-end in this case is marked according to the net metering anniversary date," not December 31, so your reset date depends on when you interconnected. A system that banks a surplus every summer and never uses it is donating that power, so in Tallahassee the right size is the one your annual usage actually absorbs.

Kissimmee (KUA): a credit rate that is not in the tariff

KUA's Schedule NM-1, effective January 1, 2026, is the most opaque arrangement in the state and worth understanding if you live there. Systems up to 2 MW qualify. But you must execute both a Standard Interconnection Agreement and "an executed Tri-Party Net Metering Power Purchase Agreement by and between Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) and KUA." Your export credit "shall be determined in accordance with the Tri-Party Net Metering Power Purchase Agreement" — a contract that is not published in the rate schedule. Ask KUA for the rate in writing.

KUA also pays a separate demand credit, outside that agreement, recognizing your contribution to lowering its billed peak. There are two methods, and which one you get depends on a cutoff: customers who had submitted all required documents, complete and signed, with an active solar permit "by May 31, 2023" are grandfathered into a method using an average class load factor — but only until the earlier of October 31, 2028 or a transfer of ownership of the property. Everyone else receives "Kissimmee Utility Authority's avoided cost rate, as determined by the Kissimmee Utility Authority, multiplied times the kWh returned to the grid." Either way, a net-metering customer remains responsible for every charge on the underlying rate schedule — "including monthly minimum charges, customer charges, meter charges, facilities charges, demand charges and surcharges." Tier 2 systems also need $1 million of liability insurance and a $320 non-refundable application fee. And read paragraph h): exports are accepted "on a first-offered first-accepted basis and subject to diminution and/or rejection" once participants' aggregate exports exceed "2.5 percent (%) of the aggregate customer peak demand on KUA's electric system." There is a ceiling on the programme, and you do not control your place in the queue.

What about Florida's electric cooperatives?

Cooperatives are member-owned and set their own terms through their boards. Section 366.91 obliges them to offer net metering; nothing obliges them to pay retail for it, and the PSC's Rule 25-6.065 protections — no Tier 1 fees, no Tier 1 insurance, the 12-month rollover, the December true-up — do not bind them.

If you are a member of LCEC, SECO Energy, Clay Electric, Withlacoochee River Electric, Peace River Electric, Talquin Electric or any other Florida co-op, get three things in writing before you size a system:

• The credit rate for exported kilowatt-hours, and whether it is retail or avoided cost.
• Whether unused credits roll over, and what happens to any balance at year end.
• Whether members with solar pay a charge other members do not — a monthly solar charge, a grid-access fee, a demand charge or a higher minimum bill.

That last one is where co-op economics most often diverge from the FPL math your installer is probably quoting.

Does Florida grandfather net-metering customers?

Not as a matter of state rule. Rule 25-6.065 contains no grandfathering clause, so if the PSC changed the rule tomorrow, existing investor-owned-utility customers would have no rule-based guarantee of today's terms. What Florida has instead is a good track record: the rule is unchanged since 2008, and the one serious attempt to cut it was vetoed in 2022. Two utilities have also published their own legacy dates — OUC protects complete applications filed before July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2045, and KUA grandfathers the better demand-credit method for documents and permits in by May 31, 2023 — though only through October 31, 2028, and it dies on sale of the home.

Be skeptical of the sales version of this. "Lock in today's net metering before it disappears" is a closing line, not a legal fact, and no salesperson can grant you a protection the rule does not contain. If your utility does publish a legacy date, get the document. If it does not, price the deal on today's rate and treat any future change as risk, not as urgency.

How to size a Florida solar system when exports are not worth retail

Everything above is the utilities' own rules. The sizing bands below are ours, and reasonable people set them differently. The old advice — cover 95 to 100% of your annual kilowatt-hours — is right only where exports earn full retail. Where they do not, sizing changes:

1. Full-retail utilities (FPL, Duke, Tampa Electric, FPUC, Tallahassee, grandfathered OUC): size to roughly 90–105% of annual usage. Anything beyond your annual consumption gets trued up at avoided cost, which is a poor return. A proposal generating 125% of your usage is selling panels the net-metering math does not reward.
2. Fuel-rate utilities (JEA, GRU, post-cutoff OUC): size to what you consume during daylight, not to your annual total. Every exported kilowatt-hour is worth a fraction of a consumed one, so load shifting — pool pump, EV charging, laundry, thermostat schedule — and a battery move from nice-to-have to central. Run the numbers both ways before adding capacity.
3. Everywhere: check the minimum bill. At FPL and Duke, $30 a month is a floor your bill cannot go below, which caps the best possible outcome at roughly your annual bill minus at least $360 — before gross receipts tax and franchise fees, which ride on top.

Then compare the proposal's year-one production estimate against the last 12 months of kilowatt-hours on your own bills. Our line-by-line proposal guide shows where that number hides, and the Florida cost guide covers fair pricing.

Before you sign: what your quote must show about net metering

1. Your utility named, and its export rate stated — "full retail under PSC Rule 25-6.065," or your municipal utility's or co-op's actual credit. Not "1-to-1 net metering" as a generic claim.
2. The minimum bill subtracted from the savings, not ignored.
3. The system's DC nameplate multiplied by 0.85, and whether that stays at or under 10 kW (about 11.8 kW DC). If not, the Tier 2 fee and insurance belong in the price.
4. The December true-up handled honestly — at avoided cost, not at retail.
5. The written disclosure. Florida's solar sales statute requires your contract's separate disclosure statement to state "the status of utility compensation for excess energy generated by the system at the time of contract signing." That is your net-metering terms, in writing, at signing. If it is blank, ask why before you sign — see Florida solar incentives and contract rules for 2026.

Florida net metering FAQ

Does Florida have 1-to-1 net metering in 2026?

At the investor-owned utilities, yes — exports are credited at the full retail rate under Rule 25-6.065. Statewide, no. Municipal utilities and cooperatives set their own rates, and several credit only the fuel portion of the bill. "Florida has 1-to-1 net metering" is true for most of the state's customers and false for a large minority, so the only answer that matters is your utility's.

Will my Florida electric bill be zero with solar?

No. Rule 25-6.065(8)(h) requires you to keep paying the customer charge and any demand charge regardless of what you export, and FPL and Duke each apply a $30 monthly minimum. A well-sized system can take the energy portion of the bill close to nothing; the fixed portion stays.

What is the COG-1 rate, and how much is it?

COG-1 is the investor-owned utility's as-available energy tariff — the rate it pays for power it did not commit to buy. It is the rate used to cash out unused net-metering credits each December. There is no fixed published figure: the tariffs calculate it from actual avoided energy costs under PSC Rule 25-17.0825, meaning incremental fuel plus variable operation and maintenance, so it moves with fuel prices and sits well below retail. Tampa Electric's tariff requires it to furnish current projections on request within 30 days.

Can my utility charge me a fee for having solar?

At the investor-owned utilities, not for a Tier 1 system: the rule bars fees "in addition to those charged to other retail customers without self-generation, including application fees," and bars requiring liability insurance. Above 10 kW AC, fees and insurance are allowed. Municipal utilities and co-ops are not bound by that rule at all — Lakeland's Solar Price Plan and KUA's stack of customer, meter, facilities and demand charges are examples of solar customers on different terms.

Does a battery change my net metering?

It can. At Tampa Electric a customer-owned battery of 1 kW or more triggers a $100,000 liability insurance requirement, and at OUC taking the battery rebate means giving up the full-retail export rate entirely. Where exports earn only the fuel rate, a battery is worth more because it turns exports into self-consumption. Where they earn full retail, the grid is already acting as your battery at retail value.

What happens to my net metering when I sell the house?

Where a grandfathering date exists, a sale is exactly where a favourable rate can be lost. OUC says the interconnection agreement itself "remains on file for the premises," but the new owner or tenant "will need to contact OUC to either establish a new OUC electric account or transfer an existing one" — and OUC's grandfathering turns on when an account was established at the premises. KUA's grandfathered demand credit ends outright on transfer of ownership. A buyer should confirm their own status with the utility rather than assume the seller's rate comes with the roof.

Have your Florida solar quote checked against your actual utility

Most Florida solar proposals are built on FPL assumptions regardless of who actually serves the address. Send yours over and we will check the export rate against your utility's current tariff, the minimum bill, the tier your system lands in, and whether the savings model survives contact with your real rate — about fifteen minutes, no cost. Start a free quote review, or read how the review works. Solarfying is an independent solar broker; if you proceed with an installer we introduce, that installer may pay us a referral fee. Homeowners never pay for the review.

Sources: PSC Rule 25-6.065 and Rule 25-17.0825, F.A.C.; Fla. Stat. §366.91; FPL's residential tariffs effective January 2025 and January 2026, FPL tariff Section 8, FPL's net metering FAQ and its November 20, 2025 rate-agreement release; Duke Energy Florida's minimum-bill page; Tampa Electric's tariff Section 8 and net-metering application; Florida Public Utilities' solar interconnection application and service-area page; OUC's tariff book effective January 2026 (TruNet Solar and Sheet 5.925), its October 2025 residential rate sheet and its rooftop solar page; JEA's distributed generation page; GRU's net metering page and FY26 residential rate sheet; Lakeland Electric's and the City of Tallahassee's net-metering pages; KUA's Electric Service Rates (Schedule NM-1, effective January 1, 2026) and net metering page; HB 741 (2022), vetoed April 27, 2022; and Fla. Stat. §520.23(14) for the contract-disclosure requirement. Rates and tariffs change — confirm current terms with your utility before relying on them. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice.