Methodology

How each figure on this site is sourced, checked, and dated.

Primary sources only

A compensation rate is published by a state commission order, a docket filing, or a utility's filed electric tariff. We read those. We do not take a rate from a news article, an installer's marketing page, or another comparison site, because those are the sources that drift furthest from the filed number.

Every field is dated

Each state record carries a verified_at date. That is the date a person last opened the governing source and confirmed the value, not the date the page was written. When a regulator issues a new order, the record is re-checked in full rather than patched, because a rate change usually moves the rollover rule, the cap, and the grandfathering clause at the same time.

When a change is pending

Many states have an approved change with a future effective date. Both values are shown, each with its own effective date, because a homeowner signing a contract today needs to know what applies at interconnection, not what is on the utility's page this afternoon.

Utility overrides

State rules set a floor or a framework. Individual utilities, especially municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives, often pay something different. Where that is true, the utility's own tariff governs, and the state page says so and links to the utility page.

Corrections

If a figure here disagrees with a filed tariff, the tariff wins and we want to know. Each page carries the source it was built from so the disagreement can be checked directly.

What this site is not

It is not a quote service, an installer directory, or a savings calculator. It does not estimate what solar will cost or what it will save you. It reports what a utility pays for exported power, which is one input into that decision and the one that is hardest to find accurately.