Clallam County Public Utility District (PUD) offers net metering for customers who generate their own electricity using fuel cells, solar, wind, water, or animal waste biogas as an energy source.
How Does Net Metering Work?
- While you’ll continue to pay the applicable basic monthly charge, we’ll provide a meter that will register energy that flows into and out of your service separately.
- We’ll subtract the difference between the 2 reads and if you receive more than what you deliver to the District, you will be billed for that at the same applicable electrical rate as you have now. If you deliver more to the District than you received, then we will bank those energy credits for you until the following month.
- You’ll be able to accumulate that energy balance on an annual basis, and once a year in March your balance will be returned to zero and the process will start over for the next year.
Basic Program Requirements:
- We strongly recommend that you apply for Interconnection, before your renewable energy production system is installed, to ensure compliance with all PUD policies and procedures, and eligibility for the program.
- Clallam County PUD must approve your Interconnection Application (PDF) before you connect to the electric grid.
- Interconnection Applicants must sign and submit an Interconnection Agreement for Net Metering (issued by Clallam PUD to approved Interconnection applicants)
- An interconnected electrical generating system used by a homeowner or business must include, at the customer’s own expense all equipment necessary to meet applicable safety, power quality, and interconnection requirements established by:
- Clallam County PUD
- National Electrical Code (NEC)
- National Electrical Safety Code
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Underwriters Laboratories (UL), and
- Applicable state and local agencies.
Questions? Contact our Utility Services department at (360) 565-3249 or email Energy Conservation.
Net Metering Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
For customers who generate their own electricity, net metering measures the electricity you buy from Clallam County PUD and the excess electricity you produce using your own generating equipment. Your electric meter keeps track of this and records the amount of energy that flows from the District to you, as well as the amount of energy that flows from you to the District.
Basically, net metering is a special metering and billing arrangement between you and Clallam County PUD. The customer is given a new digital meter that measures the in-flow (Delivered) and out-flow (Received) of energy separately.
We will continue to read your meter just like we did before, and you will receive electric bills on your normal billing schedule. Every month you will be billed the District’s Basic Customer Charge. Your bill will then show the amount of energy that the District delivered to you, the amount of energy that the District received from you, and based on those 2 values we will calculate your net energy purchases. If we deliver more energy to you than we received from you, you will be billed for the difference at our regular electrical rate for your service. If we receive more energy from you than what we had delivered, then we will store the energy balance on your account. If you have an energy balance on your account, then we will subtract from that before we bill you for the energy. Most installations build up an energy balance over the summer that they use up late fall and winter when their energy use is up, and the solar array generates less energy. Per state law, any balance remaining in March will then become the property of the PUD, the balance will be returned to 0, and a new solar year will start.
You offset your electrical purchases with your renewable energy generating system whether or not that energy flows onto our grid. The net-metering arrangement is beneficial because it allows you to bank energy credits that you can use to offset electrical costs when you may not generate as much from your solar system.
All of Clallam County PUD’s electrical customers are eligible for net metering. Feel free to contact us for eligibility questions.
Ch. 80.60 RCW has governed net metering since 1998. Per the RCW the District originally was required to make net metering available to eligible customer-generators on a first-come, first-served basis until the cumulative generating capacity of net metering systems reached 0.5% of the utility’s peak demand during 1996. During the legislative session of 2019, the legislature increased this threshold to 4%, but with a sunset date of June 30, 2029.