I have a solar system on my Henderson home that is doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
That is what makes my latest electric bill so interesting.
My present system consists of 24 Qcells 400-watt panels and 24 Enphase microinverters, for a total capacity of 9.6 kilowatts. The installer projected that it would produce 14,939 kilowatt-hours a year.
During its first full year, it actually produced about 15,300 kWh—361 kWh, or roughly 2.4 percent, more than projected. My household consumed about 16,900 kWh during the same period.
In other words, the solar system produced electricity equal to roughly 90 percent of our total annual consumption.
Since the new system was installed, my Enphase monitoring system shows that I have exported roughly 9,500 kWh of electricity to the grid.
That figure is gross lifetime export—not 9,500 kWh for which NV Energy owed me a 75 percent payment.
Then came summer.
The summer of 2026 was considerably hotter than the summer before—especially at night.
From June through August, Las Vegas’s average overnight temperature was about three degrees higher than during the same period in 2025.
In July alone, the average nighttime low rose nearly five degrees, forcing our air conditioners to work harder long after the solar panels stopped producing.
My NV Energy bill for the June 29–July 29 billing period was $238.77. NV Energy delivered 2,017 kWh to my home and received 194 kWh from my system during that billing period.
The next bill was $288.55.
At first glance, that seems difficult to reconcile with a solar system that has sent thousands of kilowatt-hours back to NV Energy.
So I started digging.
My credits did not disappear
This is important: NV Energy did not lose my solar credits or refuse to apply them. The bills show the opposite.
Under Nevada’s NMR-405 net-metering system, electricity delivered by NV Energy and electricity exported by the customer are first netted each month.
If a customer exports more during the billing month than NV Energy delivers, only the remaining monthly surplus becomes an Excess Energy Credit.
For customers like me in Tranche 4, that excess is credited at 75 percent of the applicable retail volumetric electricity rate, excluding public-policy charges.
It is a monetary credit, not a continuing one-for-one bank of kilowatt-hours.
That distinction is crucial.
My 9,500 kWh of gross lifetime exports did not become a 9,500-kWh reserve that I could draw against during a Las Vegas summer.
Much of that exported electricity offset electricity I imported during the same billing months. Only the monthly surplus remaining after netting became a monetary credit.
And those monetary credits can be surprisingly small. On one of my spring bills, I had 240 kWh of excess generation. The credit rate was 8.835 cents per kWh. Those 240 kWh earned me $21.20.
By the start of another spring billing period, I had accumulated $143 in excess-energy credits. Then summer consumption arrived.
NV Energy applied $132.01 of those accumulated credits in a single billing period, reducing what otherwise would have been a much larger bill to $18.67. That left just $8.78.
The following month NV Energy applied the remaining $8.78, leaving my credit balance at zero. My bill was $238.77.
The credits accumulated, carried forward and were properly applied. They did not disappear. The system worked according to the rules.
My question became something different: Why are those the rules?
My older system had been grandfathered under Nevada’s original NMR-G net-metering plan. In 2025, that system was completely removed and replaced with a new system. Afterward, my account moved to NMR-405 Tranche 4.
Later that same year, Nevada changed the law governing replacement systems—but by then my new system was already installed.
Why 75 percent
Nevada’s current system comes largely from Assembly Bill 405, enacted in 2017.
AB 405 eventually established four successive compensation tiers for excess rooftop-solar electricity: 95 percent, 88 percent, 81 percent and, finally, 75 percent of the applicable retail volumetric electricity rate. Tranche 4 is the permanent open tier today.
I wanted to know where that 75 percent figure came from. That turned into a much more interesting history than I expected.
AB 405’s principal sponsor was Assemblyman Chris Brooks, a Democrat. Its 18 Assembly sponsors—including Amber Joiner—and five Senate joint sponsors were Democrats.
But the legislation itself was overwhelmingly bipartisan.
The Assembly passed it 38–2: 26 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted yes; Democrat Skip Daly and Republican Ira Hansen voted no; two Republicans were excused.
After Senate amendments, the Senate passed it 21–0—11 Democrats, nine Republicans and one nonpartisan senator. Republican Sen. James Settelmeyer spoke in support of the bill. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed it.
In other words, whatever one thinks of today’s solar-compensation system, both parties own it.
But 75 percent was not the original number
The earlier Assembly version of AB 405 contemplated a less severe series of reductions—effectively compensation at approximately 95, 90, 85 and 80 percent.
Then, in the closing days of the 2017 session, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Labor and Energy proposed Amendment 1100.
That amendment changed the schedule to the one Nevada ultimately enacted: 95 percent, 88 percent, 81 percent and 75 percent.
It also did something else that deserves more attention.
The same legislation directed the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada to establish a methodology for determining whether net metering increased or decreased electric rates for other customers, by how much, and to report the results to the Legislature beginning June 30, 2020 and every two years thereafter.
In the public legislative record I reviewed, I found no economic calculation demonstrating that 75 percent was the uniquely correct value.
That does not prove 75 percent is too low. Nor does it prove that no calculation ever existed.
It means the public legislative materials I reviewed do not show that electricity exported by a rooftop-solar customer was empirically determined to be worth exactly 75 percent of the applicable retail volumetric electricity rate rather than 70, 80, 90 or 100 percent.
And the chronology is interesting: lawmakers selected the percentages while simultaneously ordering regulators to conduct a future empirical investigation of net metering’s effects on rates.
Then Nevada canceled the study
Two years later, another bill changed the picture.
Senate Bill 300 of 2019 was sponsored by Sen. Chris Brooks, a Democrat—the same legislator who had sponsored AB 405 as an assemblyman.
SB 300 initially passed the Senate unanimously, 21–0.
The Assembly subsequently added the provision repealing the special net-metering impact study and passed the amended bill 40–0—28 Democrats and 12 Republicans voting yes, with one Republican excused and one Democratic seat vacant.
The Senate then concurred in the Assembly amendment, and Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the bill.
The enacted law repealed the Commission’s duties concerning the net-metering rate-impact investigation before the first report, scheduled for June 2020, was due.
Brooks explained the proposal during an Assembly committee hearing. Referring to what had happened after AB 405, he said the system had worked out very well and that there did not appear to be much desire or need to conduct that particular study and produce the report.
Sunrun, one of the country’s largest residential-solar companies, submitted written testimony supporting SB 300 and specifically supported eliminating the separate net-metering investigation, calling that requirement unnecessary and arguing that broader rate-making and distributed-resources planning provided a better approach.
NV Energy supported SB 300 more broadly, as did solar-industry interests. I have not, however, found evidence establishing that NV Energy originated the proposal to repeal the study or that NV Energy devised the original 75 percent number. That distinction matters.
This is not much of a partisan story either.
I am not asking Nevada to mandate 100 percent
There is a legitimate argument against simply giving every rooftop-solar exporter full retail value for every excess kilowatt-hour.
NV Energy maintains power plants, transmission lines, substations, neighborhood distribution systems, meters and crews that must be available when the sun is not shining.
Nonsolar customers should not be forced to subsidize solar customers if a careful cost analysis shows that is occurring.
Solar electricity also has measurable benefits.
Depending on when and where it is generated, distributed solar can avoid some fuel and generation costs, reduce system demand, reduce transmission losses or defer some infrastructure investment.
Those benefits also deserve to be counted. That is why I am not proposing a number.
Maybe the proper compensation is 75 percent. Maybe it is 85 percent. Maybe full retail compensation is justified in some circumstances.
Maybe the real answer is not a single percentage at all, but a system that recognizes the different value of electricity by season or time of day.
Those are questions for economists, engineers, consumer advocates, regulators, the utility and the solar industry to answer with current data. But the ultimate decision belongs to Nevada.
Nearly a decade later, show us the evidence
My experience is only one household. But it illustrates the question rather well.
I invested in a 9.6-kW solar generating system. It has performed better than its engineering projection.
During its first year it generated about 15,300 kWh against household consumption of approximately 16,900 kWh.
The system has sent thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity into NV Energy’s grid. The credits I received were calculated and applied according to Nevada law.
And after those credits were exhausted, I still received a $288 summer electric bill.
I am not accusing NV Energy of stealing my electricity. The evidence does not support that.
I am asking something simpler: What is the electricity Nevada rooftop-solar owners export to the grid actually worth today?
Nevada selected the permanent 75 percent Tranche 4 rate as part of a heavily bipartisan legislative compromise nearly a decade ago.
The public legislative record I have reviewed does not show me an economic calculation establishing that 75 percent was the uniquely correct figure.
Lawmakers initially required a continuing regulatory investigation of net metering’s rate effects, then eliminated that particular requirement two years later.
The Nevada Legislature could fix that without promising solar owners a penny more.
- Require an independent, transparent, current valuation of customer-generated electricity.
- Count both sides of the ledger: benefits to the grid and costs imposed on it.
- Measure the effects on nonsolar customers.
- Examine time-of-day and seasonal value.
- Publish the assumptions, data and methodology.
Then let the evidence determine the policy.
Maybe 75 percent is right. Maybe it isn’t. But after nearly a decade, Nevada lawmakers and regulators ought to be able to show the public the evidence supporting it.
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