TL;DR
Net metering is the utility billing arrangement that credits a solar homeowner for surplus electricity exported to the grid, offsetting the power drawn at night and in winter. Full-retail-credit programs make solar payback fastest, but many states have shifted to successor tariffs — such as California's net billing — that pay export rates closer to wholesale and reward pairing panels with a battery.
What it means
Net metering is the utility billing arrangement that credits a solar homeowner for surplus electricity exported to the grid, offsetting the power drawn at night and in winter. Full-retail-credit programs make solar payback fastest, but many states have shifted to successor tariffs — such as California's net billing — that pay export rates closer to wholesale and reward pairing panels with a battery. The applicable tariff, and whether existing customers are grandfathered, drives the economics of any quote.
Where it sits in the glossary
Net metering is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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