What the state changed
If you put solar on your roof, you make more power than you use in the middle of the day and send the extra back down the wires. Net metering is the arrangement that pays you for it. For years in California the power company credited that surplus at the retail rate, the same price it charges you to buy electricity back at night.
The California Public Utilities Commission ended that in decision D.22-12-056. Since April 15, 2023, new solar customers have been paid a rate meant to reflect what the power is worth to the grid at the hour they send it. The commission says plainly that this rate is "usually lower than the retail rate", though it can beat the retail rate on late summer evenings. The state solar trade association puts the cut at 70 to 80%.
What the new rules mean if you own a house
Anyone whose application was already in before April 15, 2023, kept the old retail rate credit. Everyone since gets the new one, and is guaranteed it for 9 years. Move onto the new rate plan from an older one and you lose that guarantee. You can also size a system a little larger now, up to your yearly usage plus 50% if you say why you need it, where the old rules stopped at your yearly usage.
What happened to solar jobs and sales
The credit figure is the estimate of the state solar trade association, which is an industry group with an interest in the number. The sales figure is from source 4, and compares late 2023 with the same period in 2022.
Show the numbers
| Credit for power sent back | 70 to 80% |
| Rooftop solar sales | 66 to 83% |
The trade association surveyed its members in December 2023 and reported 17,000 solar and storage jobs lost by the end of that year, which was 22% of every solar job in California. It is an industry group reporting on itself, so read the figure as the industry account rather than a neutral count.
All over California we are seeing the grim reality of how the CPUC's cuts to solar are taking livelihoods away from thousands of families.
Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, in December 2023. Source 2.
The market numbers point the same way. Sales in late 2023 ran 66 to 83% below the same stretch of 2022. About 300 companies said they were not sure they could stay open through the winter, and 43% of contractors expected more layoffs. Analysts at Wood Mackenzie forecast in January 2024 that California would install 1,375 megawatts that year, down from 2,315 megawatts in 2023.
What people build now
Both figures are floors in the source, which reports just over 20% and more than half. The real shares are at least these.
Show the numbers
| October 2023 | 20 |
| April 2024 | 50 |
In October 2023, just over 20% of new home solar systems in California came with a battery. By April 2024 it was more than half. That is over 40,000 paired systems and 232 megawatts of new battery capacity in 7 months.
Because the credit now depends on the hour, a battery lets you hold the midday surplus and sell it back in the evening, when it is worth more.
enable customers to send electricity to the grid during hours when demand is relatively high, typically in the evening when solar generators produce less
United States Energy Information Administration, the federal agency that tracks energy data, explaining why batteries followed the rule change. Source 3.
Whether the new rules survived court
The new rules stayed in place. Three groups took the commission to court, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Working Group, and the Protect Our Communities Foundation. They argued the new rate broke the state law that is supposed to keep home solar growing. The California Supreme Court found in August 2025 that the lower court had been too easy on the commission and sent the case back to be heard again under a stricter test.
On March 9, 2026, the Court of Appeal affirmed the commission in full, finding it had acted within the authority the legislature gave it. The credit stays where the commission put it.