Late last week the West Virginia Public Service Commission officially blocked AEP’s attempt to cheat solar producers out of fair compensation for their excess power. Instead, they chose a net metering rate that’s grounded in logic, fairness, and real data that wasn’t cherry picked to pad the pockets of an out of state corporate utility.
Here at Solar Holler, there was never any debate about whether we’d intervene in the case. Protecting our state’s proud history of energy production and our right to energy freedom is a passion that’s central to who we are. But AEP’s punitive bid to retroactively strip customers of compensation they’d already been promised really highlighted the depths of their disregard for West Virginians. It underlines the importance of solar– the only way to get out from under the thumb of a profit-first monopoly utility.
As expected, we didn’t get every single thing we wanted from this ruling, but we’re proud of the role we played in protecting the integrity of net metering and the future of West Virginia solar.
So where did everything land?
- Existing solar homes are protected. If you already have solar, your net metering rate will continue to be 1 to 1 for the next 25 years.
- Anyone that applies for their solar interconnection by March 1, 2026 will be eligible for 1 to 1 net metering for the next 25 years. Anyone who goes solar after the deadline will have a net metering rate of 12.4 cents per kWh for exported solar, 27% lower than it is today.
- Choosing to add battery storage to your solar will not impact your grandfathering status.
Sign your solar agreement by December 12 to lock in 1 to 1 net metering before the cutoff.
Go solar while there’s still time to be grandfathered into full 1 to 1 net metering. We’ve set an internal deadline of December 12, 2025. Get in our queue by 12/12 and we’ll guarantee your interconnection application is submitted ahead of the March 1 cutoff.
