This checklist is for deciding whether a customer’s rate structure is a good host for solar, and for identifying what must be confirmed with the utility before anyone signs. It picks up where bill analysis leaves off: the bills are in hand, and now you need a judgment about whether the tariff rewards or punishes the system you are proposing.
Use it during early screening, before design effort goes into a site, and again before a proposal is finalized. The first pass tells you whether the opportunity is worth pursuing; the second catches the provisions that change the answer, usually buried in the tariff rather than visible on a bill. Every item below varies by utility and jurisdiction and changes over time, so the objective is to make sure none of these questions reaches construction unanswered.
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Utility Rate Structure Review Checklist
Review a utility tariff for solar value, from confirming the right rate to the charges solar cannot touch. Tick items as you confirm them, mark what does not apply, and print or export your list.
More rate analyses go wrong here than anywhere else. Customers are routinely on a schedule that no longer fits their load, many utilities offer several a given customer could qualify for, and interconnecting solar can change which are available or mandatory.
A rate is favorable for solar when a large share of the bill is volumetric and those rates are high, and unfavorable when demand, fixed and non-reducible charges dominate. Work out the shape of the bill first, so you know which lever the project is actually pulling.
Where a schedule is time-differentiated, the value of a kilowatt-hour depends on when it is produced. A structure that prices midday highly is a gift; one whose peak has shifted into the evening reduces the realized rate even when the published on-peak rate looks attractive.
Demand charge reduction is the most frequently overstated line in commercial solar proposals. The answer comes from interval data, not a rule of thumb, and several tariff provisions can make the achievable reduction far smaller than the arithmetic suggests.
Export treatment determines what happens to every kilowatt-hour the host does not consume, and it is the provision most likely to have changed since your last project in that territory. Confirm it directly rather than relying on what was true for an earlier customer.
Every tariff contains charges that continue regardless of on-site generation. Listing them prevents the common failure where a proposal shows a bill going to nearly zero and the first post-installation bill does not.
A twenty-year savings model rests on assumptions about a tariff the utility can petition to change. You cannot eliminate that risk, but you can size it and disclose it, which beats escalating today's rate at a comfortable percentage and calling it done.
This last group is about getting answers in a form you can point to later. Verbal guidance from a call center is not a basis for a twenty-year financial commitment, and the people who can answer authoritatively are often not the first people you reach.
Adapt the items to your project and use them alongside the governing documents and your advisors. Ticks and notes stay on this device only.
How to Use This Checklist
Work it in two passes. The screening pass covers the first three groups, takes little time once bills are in hand, and is enough to decide whether a site deserves further effort. The full pass belongs before a firm proposal, because several items can move the economics by more than the margin most projects work with.
Carry unresolved items forward as open risks rather than closing them with an assumption. A proposal naming three things still awaiting written utility confirmation is more credible than one presenting every number as settled.
This checklist does not replace the tariff document, the utility’s interconnection requirements, or review by someone qualified in the relevant jurisdiction. Rate structures, export mechanisms and program rules vary by utility and jurisdiction and change regularly, and nothing here states what applies in any particular territory. Confirm current terms for the specific customer, meter and system size before committing to a savings figure.