We have net metering but (laughs out loud) it is MONTHLY net metering, and the utility gives you only a $.07/kWh credit for the electricity they sell at $.14-.16/kWh. One May when we were traveling and not at home we made $2.00 back on the bill. We never planned for cost recovery with our system. PArt of the reason we can’t “make money” on solar is that the utility charges a $30/mo meter fee. So FIRST we gotta make up that $30 and THEN try to get to net MONTHLY metering on kWh. Ain’t gonna happen and we knew that going in.
Solar provides resilience if the grid goes down and allows us to largely avoid the costs of inflation on electricity. ~70-75% of our power is ‘free’ - generated by solar. As we both know solar isn’t free, but it is fixed cost.
For us, the first $15.60 (including the 4% tax) per month are flat monthly fees. And I get back only 2.91¢ to 4.52¢ per kWh when I sell (depending on the time of year and the time of day). That compares to the 15.6¢ to 16.1¢ per kWh we pay for power we pull from the grid.
And for the privilege of selling power I have to pay extra fees that total of $1.96 per month in two flat fees combined, plus a demand charge like businesses pay. In my case, the demand charge is $35.88 per month (because for a brief period in January I pulled 23kW from the grid, and that factor is used for 12 months' worth of statements, since the calculation looks at the highest demand in the past 12 months).
Thus, in my case the choice to start selling power to the grid last September means paying $37.84 in extra fees with the hope that my grid sell credit is at least that much. So far there are some months that my grid sell credit is a little over that, while during the winter months it's not nearly as much to "break even". On the 1-year anniversary I'll look at the numbers. If I don't like them I'll turn off my inverters' grid-sell feature and cancel my grid-sell contract with the utility. I'll go back to being a normal customer like everybody else with the normal bill plan, only pulling a lot less power than most people.