New Hampshire regulators have left in place the state’s net metering program, which pays owners of solar panels when they send power to the grid, but a looming expiration date could make financing more difficult.

The order from the Public Utilities Commission makes no substantive changes to the program. Notably, it does not extend the termination date of the net metering program that was established in a 2017 PUC order.

Absent an extension,the net metering program now expires in 16 years, at the end of 2040, which is less than the 20 years commonly required for investment in developments.

“If you try to get a solar project built today you’ve got a 16-year ticking clock, at the end of which is total uncertainty about the regulatory paradigm you’ll be operating under,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy NH. “If you don’t have any sort of business certainty about how you’re going to monetize that production you can’t get a loan from a bank and you can’t get a project built.”

Evans-Brown noted that more than 700 megawatts of solar projects are awaiting permission to be built and connected to the grid in New Hampshire, facing delays of 2 years or more.

“I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that based on this order, many of those projects will not happen,” he said. “We’re going to slowly see the market for solar get worse and worse and worse every year, between now and when this gets solved.”

An August agreement among most participants in the net-metering case urged that the program cover 20 years, which would run through 2044. 

The shorter time limit is unlikely to directly affect rooftop solar since arrays of less than 100 megawatts put on individual homes rarely involve long-term financing.

The PUC order held out hope that things could change, saying the commission will “establish further process to consider additional changes to the net-metering tariff as part of the Commission’s ongoing obligation to develop and improve net-metering tariffs in New Hampshire.” In a supplemental order, it set a February 2025 meeting to start the process.

The PUC order expressed the commission’s long-held concern that people with solar panels indirectly raise costs on other consumers because they pay less for the upkeep of electric transmission and distribution. Large-scale solar systems get no break on transmission costs but rooftop systems do.

“The overarching concern in establishing net-metering compensation levels (is) how can the net-metering compensation mechanism maximize any net benefits of distributed energy resources, while minimizing cost-shifting onto general ratepayers?” the PUC wrote in its order.

Advocates say rooftop solar panels don’t impose a financial burden on other customers and can actually save them money because electricity generated and used on-site reduces the need for building more expensive transmission systems. That was the position of New Hampshire’s three private utilities in 2023 testimony to the PUC for net metering when they supported the residential program, which pays homeowners roughly 75% as much for exported electricity as it charges for imported electricity.

New Hampshire has a relatively small limit of 1 megawatt, or 1,000 kilowatts, for net metering projects except those owned by municipalities, a limit that has drawn complaints as being too low to let companies take advantage of the financial savings from solar power. Municipalities in New Hampshire can run net metering on systems as large as 5 megawatts.

Rooftop solar is paid 100% of the value of all electricity it sends back to the grid but just 25% of associated distribution costs. Larger arrays, between 100 kilowatts and 1 megawatt, get 100% of the value of their production but no credit for transmission or distribution, which often makes up half the total bill.