Virginia · Policy
Virginia net metering in 2026
Virginia still has one-for-one retail net metering. On 30 April 2026 the State Corporation Commission ruled on Dominion Energy Virginia’s NEM 2.0 filing and kept the 1:1 retail credit, customer ownership of renewable energy certificates, and free interconnection. New customers pay roughly a dollar a month more and see year-end excess generation cashed out at a lower rate, and existing solar owners are grandfathered.
What Dominion asked for, and what it got
Dominion Energy Virginia proposed a successor net-metering arrangement, generally called NEM 2.0, that would have cut what a new solar customer earns for exported power from roughly 14 cents per kilowatt-hour to about 9.55 cents. Had the company also taken ownership of customers’ renewable energy certificates, the effective figure would have fallen further still.
The Commission declined the substance of that. It preserved the one-for-one retail credit, left the certificates with the customer, and kept interconnection free. What it did allow is modest: an administrative charge of about a dollar a month for customers connecting under NEM 2.0, and a separate, lower rate for genuinely excess generation cashed out at the end of the year rather than used against your own consumption.
The distinction in that last point matters and is widely misread. Retail credit still applies to the production that offsets what your household actually uses across the year. The lower cash-out rate applies only to whatever is left over beyond your own annual consumption, which for a correctly sized residential system is a small number by design.
The 20 kW standby threshold, and the lag you need to know about
HB 1255 amended §56-594 of the Code of Virginia and took effect on 1 July 2026, raising the capacity above which a residential net-metering customer is billed a monthly standby charge from 15 kW AC to 20 kW AC. For a household with electric vehicles, heat pumps or a well, that is real headroom, and it also lets owners of existing 15 kW systems add capacity.
Here is the part almost nobody writes down. A statutory effective date is not the date a utility’s billing system follows. At the time of writing Dominion had not yet updated its Schedule 1 residential tariff to reflect the new threshold, and the tariff still provides for a distribution standby charge above 15 kW AC. Some installers are continuing to hold designs at 15 kW AC until that update lands.
The practical consequence for you is simple. If your household genuinely wants more than 15 kW AC, ask directly whether the tariff has been updated at the time you interconnect, and get the answer in writing. We would rather raise that than design a system that triggers a charge nobody mentioned. Appalachian Power territory is a separate case, where standby charges were removed entirely in 2020.
Your utility still decides the details
Net metering in Virginia is governed by §56-594 and applies to the investor-owned utilities and to electric cooperatives, but the terms are not identical everywhere. Dominion Energy Virginia and Appalachian Power are Commission-regulated. The cooperatives, including NOVEC and Rappahannock Electric, run their own programmes within the statutory framework, and Virginia Energy maintains the directory of which utilities offer net metering at all.
Two cooperative-specific things are worth checking before you sign anything. Some cooperatives publish a running figure for how much net-metering capacity remains on their system, and those caps can fill. Shenandoah Valley Electric, for instance, updates its figure every other month. Second, a municipal utility such as the City of Manassas is not Commission-regulated at all and sets its own policy locally, so a page describing Dominion’s terms does not describe a Manassas meter.
Residential net metering is capped at 20 kW and non-residential at 100 kW, and unused credits carry forward within the twelve-month net-metering period. We confirm which utility serves your address from your bill before designing, because in Northern Virginia in particular the boundary between Dominion and a cooperative runs street by street.
Why this makes Virginia unusual right now
Most solar content on the internet is currently running a story about net metering being dismantled. In South Carolina, where our company is based, that story is accurate: one-for-one credit closed to new applicants in 2021. In Georgia the equivalent programme closed to new customers years ago. Virginia went the other way in 2026, and did so after a contested proceeding rather than by default.
That has a specific consequence for how a Virginia system should be designed. Where the export credit is a few cents, the whole game is self-consumption and storage. Where the export credit is retail, a well-sized array that simply offsets annual household use is doing its job without any of that complexity, and a battery becomes a resilience decision rather than an economic one.
The federal residential credit is a separate matter and it is gone: Section 25D expired for systems placed in service on or after 1 January 2026. Virginia has no state income tax credit to replace it. So the honest framing here is that Virginia’s advantage is on the utility side of the ledger, not the tax side.
What "survived a contested proceeding" actually means
One-for-one retail net metering in Virginia came through a contested proceeding at the State Corporation Commission in April 2026. The outcome was favourable, and the fact that it was contested at all is the part worth holding onto when you are weighing an asset with a twenty-five year life.
Retail-rate crediting is a genuinely strong position. It means the grid functions much more like a bank than a wholesale buyer: a kilowatt-hour exported in June is worth a kilowatt-hour drawn in January. That is what allows Virginia systems to be sized against annual consumption rather than against daytime load, and it is why the economic pressure to add storage is lower here than in Georgia.
It also explains why Virginia works without a state tax credit. Georgia has no credit either, but Georgia exports earn roughly 7.2 cents against a retail rate near 13 cents. Virginia’s export position is doing the job a credit does elsewhere, which is a structurally different argument even though the headline (no state credit) is identical.
Investor-owned utilities and cooperatives are not the same programme
Virginia splits between investor-owned utilities regulated by the State Corporation Commission and member-owned electric cooperatives, and their net-metering programmes differ. Programme caps, eligible system sizes and any standby charges are the details that change a model, and they are not uniform statewide.
That means the first question on a Virginia enquiry is which provider and which programme, not which panels. If you are comparing two proposals, confirm both are modelling the same programme before comparing totals. Otherwise you are comparing assumptions rather than offers.
System size limits deserve particular attention, because they interact with how the system is sized against your consumption. A design that would be optimal on consumption grounds can run into a programme limit, and finding that at interconnection rather than at design is an expensive way to learn it.
How these rules change, and what that means for a 25-year decision
Export arrangements are set through processes that can be revisited, and in our three states they have been. That is not a reason to avoid solar; it is a reason to size a system that makes sense on today’s terms rather than one that only works if favourable terms hold for decades.
It is also a reason to be careful with any projection running twenty-five years on a single escalation assumption. Small differences in assumed rate rises compound into very large differences in a headline total, which is why two quotes for near-identical hardware can show totals tens of thousands of pounds apart. The assumption, not the equipment, is doing the work.
Where a system is grandfathered under earlier terms, that status usually attaches to the installation and its interconnection date rather than to the homeowner. If you are buying a house with an existing array, what applies to it is a question worth asking before closing rather than after.
We date the facts on these pages for the same reason. A policy page without a date is asking to be trusted indefinitely, and none of this is stable enough to deserve that.
The federal credit, and why so much of what you have read is wrong
The 30% federal residential clean energy credit expired for systems placed in service on or after 1 January 2026. Not reduced, not deferred: expired. Any article, calculator or quote that still subtracts it is describing a position that is no longer available, and the error is usually worth several thousand dollars on a typical residential system.
This matters more than a normal content-freshness problem because of how solar is researched. Most homeowners read two or three national comparison sites before speaking to anyone, and a large share of that material has not been revised. Arriving at a quote with a net cost already in mind that is thousands of dollars too low makes every subsequent conversation harder, and it is not the installer’s error.
The practical advice is narrow and useful: before you compare anything, check whether a federal credit has been applied. If it has, the comparison is not valid and the figures need redoing rather than adjusting.
Virginia FAQ
Common questions about solar in Virginia
Does Virginia still have 1:1 net metering in 2026?
Yes. The State Corporation Commission ruled on Dominion Energy Virginia’s NEM 2.0 filing on 30 April 2026 and preserved one-for-one retail crediting, customer ownership of renewable energy certificates, and free interconnection. New customers pay an administrative charge of roughly a dollar a month, and generation beyond your own annual use is cashed out at a lower rate at year end.
How big a system can I install in Virginia without a standby charge?
HB 1255 raised the threshold from 15 kW AC to 20 kW AC with effect from 1 July 2026. Confirm at the time you interconnect whether your utility has updated its tariff, because at the time of writing Dominion had not yet done so and its schedule still provided for a charge above 15 kW AC. Ask for the answer in writing.
Is there a Virginia state tax credit for solar?
No. Virginia has no state income tax credit for residential solar. What it does have is a mandatory property tax exemption for residential systems of 25 kW or less, local-option exemptions above that in many counties, and retail net metering. The federal residential credit expired for systems placed in service on or after 1 January 2026.
Do electric cooperatives in Virginia offer net metering?
Yes, within the framework of §56-594, but the terms are their own rather than Commission-set, and some publish a remaining-capacity figure because their programmes can fill. Municipal utilities such as the City of Manassas are not Commission-regulated at all and set their policy locally. We confirm your utility from your bill before designing.
What happens to my net metering if I sell the house?
Existing net-metering arrangements were grandfathered by the 2026 ruling, and Virginia has historically allowed a subsequent owner to continue the arrangement. Confirm the position for your specific agreement with your utility as part of a sale rather than assuming it transfers automatically.
The other half of the Virginia picture
Export terms decide most of the outcome, but they are not the whole of it. What you can claim back, and where we work, are the other two pieces.
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