Last week, I stumbled onto one of the best reminders of why I love my job. A guy I’ll call “Luke” had gone solar in Hawaii, and he was telling people online that the cost of doing so here in the PNW would exceed six figures. When I gently pointed out that these systems usually run $25K–$35K, he said I had to add on the price of a new roof, batteries, and a new EV. No matter how I tried to explain, he kept insisting that these were necessities: to Luke, this was all a single, indivisible project. He even said he couldn’t go solar in Kitsap because he couldn’t afford another electric vehicle!

After reflecting on the conversation, it occurred to me that Luke didn’t know about Washington’s net metering policies. Most utilities here credit your account kilowatt-for-kilowatt for any electricity you export to the grid–what’s commonly called “one-to-one net metering.” The grid, in effect, functions like a very large, very reliable battery that you don’t have to buy, install, or maintain. This allows Washington solar owners to bank up months’ worth of summer credit to get them through the winter.

Coming from Hawaii, Luke had very different expectations. Since 2015, Hawaiian solar installs are either credited at a sharply reduced rate or forbidden from exporting to the grid at all. Without a battery, you can’t even store midday excess for that evening, let alone save it for winter. Even with batteries, your home needs to be fully electrified to minimize the waste of anything over what is necessary to charge them. An electric vehicle charging in the daytime is exactly the kind of energy sink that a smart homeowner ought to have to avoid losing considerable value from their solar. 

Luke’s thinking was actually really smart–for a Hawaii homeowner. He just hadn’t wrapped his head around the genuine gift of Washington’s net metering. Here, going solar doesn’t require a complete lifestyle reinvention. It doesn’t require a new car, a new roof (unless your roof actually needs it), full home electrification, or a bank of batteries in your garage. It just requires home ownership, grid access, and a willingness to let us take a look.

That gift, however, comes with an expiration date: PSE has exceeded the 4% threshold that allows them to change the net metering schedules, and the current schedules expired last year. That 4% threshold refers to 4% of the 1996 peak load–a figure that has no actual technical bearing on anything here 30 years later, but it’s the metric that has been used in WA’s Net Metering Law since 1998. Andy wrote about this back in 2024, and the Value of Solar study group he mentioned there has been funded and convened. Its findings are due this autumn, and utilities will surely use those findings to set new rates if the state allows it. People who get in before that change are expected to be grandfathered in. 

So, good news for Luke–and maybe for you, too! 

• You don’t have to do it all at once. 
• You don’t have to redesign your entire life around it. 
• You just have to start.
  
  Give us a call: the gift is real, and it’s yours to claim.

–Matthew Barrett is the Solar Navigator at Power Trip Energy Corp, based in Port Townsend, WA. Power Trip Energy serves Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties and the surrounding region. Questions? Call us at (360) 643-3080 or fill out the form in the sidebar to know more.