Solar Panel Installation in Anaheim, CA
Solar, battery storage and EV charging in Anaheim — priced against what
Anaheim Public Utilities actually pays you for exported power, hour by hour.
LA Solar Group has installed solar across Southern California since 2010, from our yard at
8484 San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. Anaheim is not on Edison and it is not on NEM 3.0 — but it
is not on retail net metering either, and most solar quotes in this city get that wrong in one
direction or the other. Anaheim Public Utilities publishes an hour-by-hour export rate table.
We design against it.
- System sized against APU’s published export rates, not a generic savings model
- Battery storage sized to shift export into Anaheim’s highest-paying hours
- EV charger and panel upgrade rebates filed with APU on your behalf
- Level 2 EV chargers and main-panel load calculations done once
- Design, permitting and APU interconnection handled end to end
Get an Anaheim solar quote
A real designer reviews your roof and your APU bill — not an instant guess.
Anaheim is not on NEM 3.0. It is also not on retail net metering.
Both of the common claims about Anaheim solar are wrong
Wrong claim #1: “NEM 3.0 cut your export credits.” The net billing tariff
called NEM 3.0 came from a California Public Utilities Commission decision. The CPUC regulates
investor-owned utilities — PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E. Anaheim Public
Utilities is a municipal utility owned by the City of Anaheim. The CPUC does not regulate
it, and NEM 3.0 does not apply here.
Wrong claim #2: “Municipal utilities still pay full retail
net metering.” They did here, until the capacity ran out. State legislation required APU
to offer retail kWh-for-kWh net metering up to 5 percent (30 MW) of its peak aggregate
load — a mandate Anaheim Public Utilities met in 2019. APU now offers
wholesale-based rates under its NEM 2.0 program.
So the outcome for a new Anaheim solar customer looks a bit like net billing — but for an
entirely different legal reason, on an entirely different rate structure, run by an entirely
different body. Any proposal that models you as an Edison customer is modelling the wrong utility.
What Anaheim pays you for exported solar, hour by hour
APU publishes an Annual Cash Compensation rate table for excess solar energy, based on a formula
in Developmental Schedule D-NEM. It is paid on all energy sent back to the grid in each bill cycle.
Most solar companies quoting in Anaheim have never opened it.
Off-peak
$0.0477 / kWh
Mid-peak
$0.0795 / kWh
On-peak
$0.1194 / kWh
Weekdays — Summer (July 1 to November 1)
| Hours | Period | Rate per kWh |
|---|---|---|
| Midnight – 12:00 p.m. | Off-peak | $0.0477 |
| 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Mid-peak | $0.0795 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. | On-peak | $0.1194 |
| 9:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. | Mid-peak | $0.0795 |
| 11:00 p.m. – midnight | Off-peak | $0.0477 |
Weekdays — Winter (November 1 to July 1)
| Hours | Period | Rate per kWh |
|---|---|---|
| 6:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. | Mid-peak | $0.0795 |
| 4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. | Mid-peak | $0.0795 |
| All other hours | Off-peak | $0.0477 |
There is no on-peak period in winter at all. For eight months of the year, the
most an exported kilowatt-hour can earn in Anaheim is 7.95¢.
Weekends — both seasons
Flat $0.0477 per kWh, every hour of the day, all year. Saturday and Sunday
export is paid the floor rate no matter when you generate it.
Holidays treated as off-peak: New Year’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day,
Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. A listed holiday
falling on a Sunday is observed the following Monday; holidays falling on a Saturday do not change
the off-peak hours. Rates are updated annually and the current table expires June 30,
2027. Where this page and Developmental Schedule D-NEM disagree, D-NEM governs.
Source: APU — Net Energy Metering 2.0 Excess Solar Energy Rates.
Always confirm the current table before signing anything.
Three things that table tells you that a generic quote will not
1. Your weekend solar is worth the floor rate
Weekends are flat off-peak, both seasons. Roughly two sevenths of the year, every exported
kilowatt-hour earns 4.77¢ regardless of how sunny it is or what time you generate it. If your
household is out all week and home at weekends, that changes your whole self-consumption
picture.
2. Summer evenings pay two and a half times the floor
$0.1194 against $0.0477, weekday afternoons and evenings in summer. That is precisely the
window when a roof is producing least and an Anaheim house with air conditioning is using most.
Solar alone cannot reach those hours. Storage can.
3. Winter has no premium at all
No on-peak period exists November through June. Any savings model that assumes a year-round
peak export rate is overstating your return by a wide margin. Ask any bidder to show you their
winter assumption.
The design conclusion: in Anaheim, a kilowatt-hour you use yourself is worth
far more than a kilowatt-hour you export — and a kilowatt-hour you can move into the 4 p.m. to
9 p.m. summer window is worth two and a half times one you dump at noon on a Saturday. That is the
entire argument for storage in this city, and unlike in Los Angeles, it is an argument about money
rather than about outages.
Get a quote built on Anaheim’s actual export rates
Anaheim is the one city on the Westside where the battery math is simple
In Los Angeles, on LADWP, exported solar is credited at close to retail — so storing a
kilowatt-hour instead of exporting it does not buy you much, and we tell customers there that the
real reason for a battery is outage backup. Anaheim is different, and the difference is
arithmetic.
The spread is 2.5×
Export a kilowatt-hour at noon on a Saturday and APU pays 4.77¢. Hold that same kilowatt-hour
in a battery and release it at 6 p.m. on a summer weekday and it is worth $0.1194 — or, better
still, use it yourself and avoid buying power at retail. That spread is what a battery is
actually selling you here.
Anaheim’s peak load is air conditioning
This is a hot inland climate with a summer evening cooling load. The hours APU pays the most
for exported energy are the same hours your air conditioning is working hardest. A battery that
covers that window works on both sides of the meter at once.
Whole-home or critical loads
The decision most proposals skip. Backing up an entire house takes considerably more storage
than backing up a critical-loads subpanel. We price both so you can see the difference rather
than being defaulted into the larger system.
Outage backup is still real
Even where the money case leads, remember that a grid-tied array without storage disconnects
during an outage by design, for the safety of line crews. Solar alone produces nothing while the
power is out.
We install Tesla Powerwall and other battery platforms. The right one depends on
your backup load, your panel and your available wall or garage space — not on which brand is being
pushed this quarter. APU also lists a battery storage program on its solar pages; we check current
eligibility before it appears in a proposal.
What Anaheim actually offers a rooftop solar customer today
Some solar companies still advertise the Anaheim Solar Rebate Program. Anaheim Public
Utilities no longer lists a residential rooftop solar rebate among its current solar programs.
APU’s Solar Energy and Net Metering page lists net metering, the Community Solar Discount Program,
battery storage and business solar — not a rooftop rebate. The programme guidelines document that
still circulates online is dated 09/2015 and contains no rebate amounts.
We would rather tell you that up front than build a proposal around money that is not
there. If APU reopens a rooftop rebate we will file it for you. In the meantime, here is
what is genuinely available in Anaheim right now.
Federal tax credit
The federal residential clean energy credit remains the largest single incentive on most
Anaheim projects. It is a tax credit rather than a rebate, so it depends on your tax situation.
Confirm eligibility with your own tax professional — we do not give tax advice.
EV charger and panel upgrade rebates
APU pays up to $300 for a Level 2 EV charger, up to $600 for
a networked charger on a time-of-use rate, and up to $750 more toward an
electric panel upgrade. Full detail in the EV section below.
Community Solar Discount Program
For income-qualified residential customers without their own solar. Participants
receive a $20 monthly billing discount from utility-owned solar at public school
sites and the Anaheim Convention Center, for up to 12 months, based on 80% of Orange County
Median Income. Not a rooftop rebate, but worth knowing.
Sources: APU — Solar Energy and Net Metering ·
APU — Community Solar Discount Program.
Programme availability changes; we confirm what is open before it appears in a proposal.
If you already have NEM 1.0 solar in Anaheim, read this before adding panels
Expanding your array moves your whole system to NEM 2.0
APU’s own wording: “NEM 1.0 customers who are grandfathered will not
be placed on NEM 2.0 unless they seek to expand their solar panels, at which time, customers will be
placed solely on NEM 2.0 for their entire system.”
Read that carefully, because it is harsher than it first appears. Adding panels does not put just
the new panels on the wholesale-based rate — it moves your entire existing system onto
NEM 2.0. A grandfathered Anaheim household that wants more capacity should model that
consequence before committing, because the loss on the original array can outweigh the gain from the
addition.
If your goal is to cover a new load such as an electric car, storage is usually the move
that does not cost you your grandfathered rate. We will model both paths and show you the
difference rather than defaulting you into more panels.
EV charging in Anaheim: charge on your own solar, not on peak power
An electric car is the largest single load most Anaheim households will ever add. Where you charge
it in the day — and whether it runs off your own roof or off the grid — decides whether it costs you
a little or a lot.
Charge in the middle of the day if you can
Exported midday solar earns you the off-peak rate of 4.77¢. The same kilowatt-hour put into
your car instead is worth whatever you would otherwise have paid to buy it. For a household that
can charge during daylight — remote work, a second car, a weekend vehicle — self-consumption
beats export by a wide margin in Anaheim.
Do the load calculation before you buy the car
A Level 2 charger, a heat pump, an induction range and a battery all land on the same main
service panel. Older Anaheim homes frequently need that panel upgraded. Sizing it once for
everything you plan to add costs far less than doing it twice.
Solar and the charger on one permit
If the array and the charger go in together, the panel work, the plan set and the inspection
happen once. Splitting them across two projects means paying for mobilisation, permitting and
inspection twice.
The Anaheim EV charger rebate, and the time-of-use catch
Anaheim Public Utilities pays a rebate on Level 2 EV chargers installed at a home or business
under its Private Use EV Charger Rebate Program. The amount depends on the charger you buy and on
one decision about your rate:
| What you install | Rebate |
|---|---|
| Level 2 EV charger | Up to $300 |
| Networked charger, and you sign up for a time-of-use (TOU) rate | Up to $600 |
| Electric panel upgrade (only alongside a charger rebate) | Additional up to $750 |
The networked-charger option pays double, but it requires moving to a time-of-use
rate. In Anaheim that is not a throwaway decision — your export compensation is already
time-of-day based, so the TOU rate, the charger schedule and any battery you install all need to be
planned together rather than one at a time. This is exactly the conversation most quotes skip.
APU lists eligible reimbursable expenses as the cost of the charger, the cost of installation
(material receipts are not eligible), upgrades needed to accommodate the charger, and City permit
fees for the EV charger. Anaheim Municipal Code Section 15.05.040 requires each EV charging station
to be permitted. Rebates are subject to fund availability.
Residential Rebates & Incentives: (714) 765-4250.
Source: APU — Private Use EV Charger & Electric Panel Upgrade Rebates.
Amounts and rules change; confirm current terms with APU.
What actually decides an Anaheim solar design
Anaheim is not a hillside market. There is no canyon terrain shading, no ridgeline wind
exposure and, across most of the city, no very high fire hazard severity zone. The constraints here
are different, and they are mostly about roofs and heat.
Post-war tract housing, and its roofs
Much of Anaheim’s housing stock is single-storey tract construction with simple, generously
sized roof planes — which is good news for array layout. The catch is roof age. If the
composition shingle has under ten years left, replacing it before the panels go on costs far
less than removing and reinstalling the array later.
A hot inland cooling load
Anaheim runs hotter than the coastal cities, and the bill is driven by summer air
conditioning in the late afternoon and evening. That is the same window APU pays the most for
exported energy — which is why storage and system sizing have to be considered together here,
not sequentially.
HOAs and planned communities
Parts of Anaheim, particularly the newer developments and Anaheim Hills, are governed by
homeowners associations with architectural guidelines. The California Solar Rights Act
(Civil Code 714) limits how far an association can restrict a solar installation, but the
documentation still has to be filed properly.
Anaheim Hills is its own conversation
The eastern hillside neighbourhoods have slope, some terrain shading and fire-zone exposure
that the flat parts of the city do not. If your address is in the hills, the fire-zone and wind
questions from our Los Angeles hillside pages apply to you and the tract-housing assumptions on
this page do not.
Four steps, in this order
Bill and roof review
We pull 12 months of APU billing, measure the roof, run the shade study, and model against
APU’s actual export rate table rather than a generic savings curve.
Rate and rebate planning
We check which incentives are actually open, and — if an EV charger is in scope — whether the
networked-charger and time-of-use route is worth taking, before anything is
ordered.
Permit and build
Plan set to the City of Anaheim building department, then installation once the permit is
issued.
Inspection, agreement, claim
Final building and meter inspection, you sign the Net Energy Metering Agreement, then we file
the incentive claim with the shade study and warranties.
What these jobs actually cost
Everyone else says “free estimates.” We publish real systems with real numbers.
Neighborhood · roof type · system size (kW) · panel count and wattage · battery model and count ·
net price the customer paid · days on roof · contract-to-PTO days · before and
after photos. Use the same format as the Beverly Hills page.
Same fields. A storage job demonstrates the 4.77¢ vs $0.1194 argument in practice rather than in
theory — the strongest possible proof for this page.
Same fields. If no Anaheim job exists yet, a nearby Orange County install is acceptable — label it
accurately as such.
★★★★★
What Orange County homeowners say
Paste 3 real Google reviews here — reviewer name, star rating, and the quote as written.
Do not add
AggregateRating or Review schema until these are real reviews;fabricated review markup is a manual-action risk.
Four questions to ask any Anaheim solar bidder
“Which utility did you model?”
If the answer mentions Edison or NEM 3.0, they modelled the wrong utility. Anaheim Public
Utilities is municipal and runs its own program.
“What export rate did you assume?”
There are three, they vary by hour and season, and there is no on-peak rate in winter. A
single blended number is a guess.
“Which Anaheim incentives are actually open right now?”
If a bidder is quoting a rooftop solar rebate from Anaheim Public Utilities, ask them to show
you the current programme page. APU does not list one.
“Show me the shade study.”
APU requires a shade study report with monthly shading percentages for the incentive claim
anyway. A bidder who has not produced one is not ready to file.
Request an Anaheim solar quote
Anaheim solar questions
Does NEM 3.0 apply to solar in Anaheim?
No. The net billing tariff commonly called NEM 3.0 came from a California Public Utilities
Commission decision, and the CPUC regulates investor-owned utilities: PG&E, Southern California
Edison and SDG&E. Anaheim Public Utilities is a municipal utility owned by the City of Anaheim
and is not CPUC-regulated, so NEM 3.0 does not apply.
So does Anaheim still pay full retail net metering?
No, not for new customers. State legislation required APU to offer retail kWh-for-kWh net
metering up to 5 percent, or 30 megawatts, of its peak aggregate load. Anaheim Public Utilities met
that mandate in 2019 and now offers wholesale-based rates under its NEM 2.0 program.
How much does Anaheim pay for exported solar?
Under APU’s published Net Energy Metering 2.0 Excess Solar Energy Rates, exported energy is paid
at $0.0477 per kWh off-peak, $0.0795 per kWh mid-peak and $0.1194 per kWh on-peak. On-peak applies
only on summer weekday afternoons and evenings; there is no on-peak period in winter. Weekends are
paid the flat off-peak rate of $0.0477 in both seasons. Rates are updated annually and the current
table expires June 30, 2027.
Is a battery worth it in Anaheim?
The arithmetic is more favourable here than in Los Angeles. Because exported energy is paid a
wholesale-based rate as low as 4.77¢ per kWh, energy you store and use yourself — or release during
the $0.1194 summer on-peak window — is worth substantially more than energy you export. That is a
genuine financial case, in addition to the outage-backup case that applies anywhere: a grid-tied
array without storage shuts down during a power outage by design.
Is there a solar rebate in Anaheim?
Anaheim Public Utilities does not currently list a residential rooftop solar rebate among its
solar programmes. Its Solar Energy and Net Metering page covers net metering, the Community Solar
Discount Program, battery storage and business solar. A Residential Solar Rebate Program guidelines
document dated 09/2015 still circulates online but contains no rebate amounts. The main incentives
available to an Anaheim rooftop solar customer today are the federal residential clean energy tax
credit and, where an electric vehicle charger is involved, APU’s EV charger and electric panel
upgrade rebates.
Is Anaheim moving to NEM 3.0?
No. Anaheim Public Utilities states plainly that Anaheim is not going to NEM 3.0. As a municipal
utility it is outside California Public Utilities Commission jurisdiction and sets its own net
metering programme, which is currently the wholesale-based NEM 2.0.
I have NEM 1.0 solar in Anaheim. What happens if I add panels?
Adding panels moves your whole system off the grandfathered rate. Anaheim Public Utilities
states that grandfathered NEM 1.0 customers will not be placed on NEM 2.0 unless they seek to
expand their solar panels, at which time customers will be placed solely on NEM 2.0 for their
entire system — not just the new capacity. If the goal is to cover a new load such as an electric
car, battery storage is usually the option that does not affect the grandfathered rate.
Does Anaheim offer an EV charger rebate?
Yes. Under APU’s Private Use EV Charger Rebate Program, customers can receive up to $300 for a
Level 2 EV charger, or up to $600 for a networked charger where the customer signs up for a
time-of-use rate, plus an additional rebate of up to $750 for an electric panel upgrade taken
alongside a charger rebate. Eligible expenses include the charger, installation, upgrades needed to
accommodate the charger, and City permit fees. Rebates are subject to fund availability, and
Anaheim Municipal Code Section 15.05.040 requires each EV charging station to be permitted.
What is the Community Solar Discount Program?
It is an Anaheim Public Utilities programme for income-qualified residential customers who do
not have their own solar. Participants receive a $20 monthly billing discount funded by
utility-owned solar at public school sites and the Anaheim Convention Center, for a participation
period of up to twelve months. Eligibility is based on 80% of the Orange County Median Income
level, which is adjusted annually.
Can you replace my roof at the same time?
Yes. If the roof has less than roughly ten years of life left, replacing it before the array goes
on costs less than removing and reinstalling panels later, and it is one contract and one crew
sequence. See our roofing services.
Related services and nearby areas
Services
Residential solar installation
Battery storage & Powerwall
EV charger installation
Solar-ready roofing
Commercial solar
Swap placeholder URLs for real slugs on la-solargroup.com
before publishing.
Still have questions?
Talk to a designer who has read Anaheim’s export rate table.
