Why your true-up bill was bigger than you expected

The short answer

Your true-up bill is bigger than you expected for one of three reasons, and usually a mix of all three: the credits you earned exporting power are worth far less than the power you buy back; whatever credits are left at the end of your twelve-month cycle get adjusted down and then forfeited rather than paid out; and the fixed monthly charges were never something solar could offset in the first place.

None of that is a billing error. It is how Edison’s Solar Billing Plan is designed to work, and it is written into the tariff.

What the Solar Billing Plan actually is

If your system was interconnected under California’s net billing tariff — the rules commonly called NEM 3.0 — you are on what Edison calls the Solar Billing Plan. Edison puts these customers on the TOU-D-PRIME rate plan, and states that new customers’ rates are locked for nine years from enrollment.

The important shift from the older net metering rules is this: you are no longer trading kilowatt-hours one for one. You are earning a credit denominated in dollars, and the number of dollars depends entirely on when you exported.

How an export credit is valued

Edison states that Energy Export Credits are “based on a calculated hourly electricity price,” and that those hourly prices are “derived from the latest CPUC approved Avoided Cost Calculator and will vary by month, weekday, and weekends.”

In practice that means the credit is high in the hours the grid is short of power — Edison specifically calls out 4 to 9 p.m., “when people return home from work,” and the summer months — and low the rest of the time. Midday in spring, when a south-facing roof is producing its absolute maximum, is close to the bottom of the range, because every other solar roof in Southern California is doing the same thing at the same moment.

So the asymmetry that catches people out is: you export at a low hourly value and buy back at a retail peak rate. On TOU-D-PRIME that retail peak is 59¢ per kilowatt-hour in summer. A kilowatt-hour exported at midday does not come close to buying back a kilowatt-hour at 6 p.m.

The Relevant Period, and what happens at the end of it

Your account runs on a twelve-month cycle Edison calls the Relevant Period. It starts in the same month your system began service, not in January. At the end of it you get a settlement bill — the true-up.

Edison’s own description of what happens to leftover credits is worth reading slowly:

• FirstUnused Energy Export Credits are applied to eligible charges in the current month
• ThenTo eligible charges from previous months, if any remain
• ThenTo offset the Energy Export Credit Charge Adjustment
• Finally“The rest are forfeited”

That last line is the one nobody is told at the point of sale. Credits do not roll into next year and they are not cashed out at face value.

The EEC Adjustment

There is a second mechanism on the settlement bill, and it surprises people more than the forfeiture does. Edison reviews the full year and, in its words, “some of the extra credits you received during the year will be reduced,” appearing as an EEC Adjustment. The stated reasoning is direct: “Energy Export Credits are meant to help offset eligible electricity charges. They are not meant to erase your bill completely.”

If you have been watching a growing credit balance on your monthly bills all year and mentally banking it, the settlement statement is where part of it is taken back.

Net Surplus Compensation

If you genuinely produced more than you consumed across the whole year, you may be eligible for a payout at the Net Surplus Compensation Rate. Edison states the NSCR “is about $0.02” and that “it may not cover the full amount of your True-Up credit adjustments.”

Two cents. Against a 59¢ peak retail rate. Deliberately oversizing a system to sell power back to Edison has not been a sound plan since the net billing tariff took effect, and any salesperson still pitching it that way is working from an old script.

The part that was never offsettable

Separately from all of the above, the Base Services Charge — $24.15 a month for most residential customers — is a fixed charge for the grid connection. Export credits offset electricity charges. They do not offset that. Over a twelve-month Relevant Period that is roughly $290 of your bill that solar was never going to touch, and it should have been in the estimate you were shown. We wrote about that change inwhat actually changed on your Edison bill in 2026.

What actually reduces a true-up bill

The honest answer is that it comes down to consuming your own production instead of exporting it, because your own production is worth retail to you and wholesale to Edison.

• Storage. Edison’s own guidance says adding a battery “reduces your risk of an Energy Export Credit Adjustment (EECA) on your settlement bill.” A battery holds the midday surplus and spends it across the 4–9 p.m. window, so those hours are covered by your own power rather than bought at peak.
• Moving load into daylight. Dishwasher, laundry, pool pump, EV charging. Every kilowatt-hour you consume while the panels are producing is a kilowatt-hour you never export at two cents and never buy back at fifty-nine.
• Sizing honestly at the start. Under net billing, a system sized to your consumption pattern beats a system sized to the biggest number that fits on the roof. Bigger is not automatically better any more.
• Knowing your Relevant Period date. It is on your bill. If you know the month your cycle closes, the surprise stops being a surprise.

How this works on a $0-down plan

Worth saying plainly, because it is the arrangement most of our customers are on. Under a power purchase agreement you pay us a fixed rate for the electricity the system produces, and you keep your relationship with Edison for everything the system does not cover. You still have a Solar Billing Plan account, you still have a Relevant Period, and you still have a settlement bill. The PPA changes what you pay for the equipment, not how Edison settles exports.

Anyone who tells you a PPA makes your Edison bill disappear is describing something that does not exist. What a well-sized system with storage does is make both numbers smaller and more predictable. That is a real result and it is worth having — it is just not the same claim.

Sources

All quotations above are Edison’s own wording, from its public documentation.

• Southern California Edison — How Solar Billing Plans Work
• Southern California Edison — FAQs about the Solar Billing Plan
• Southern California Edison — How to Read Your Solar Bill
• Southern California Edison — Net Surplus Compensation Rate (tariff)

Published September 12, 2026; checked September 12, 2026. Rates and the NSCR change. For your own account, your Relevant Period date, and your settlement bill, Edison is the authority. We are a solar broker, not a utility and not a tax advisor.