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How to check a solar true-up bill for errors

Last reviewed: October 26, 2026. General arithmetic only. Your utility's tariff and your state's rules set the real terms.

Short answer

Your utility's annual true-up statement settles a year of solar credits in one bill. Three things go wrong often enough to check: a credit balance that didn't carry over, arithmetic that doesn't match the bill's own figures, and exports the bill didn't count.

This is the utility bill, not your solar lease

The word "true-up" means two different things for solar homes. A lease or PPA true-up compares your system's output with the production your agreement guaranteed; that is what this guide covers. This page is about the other one: the annual statement from your electric utility that settles a year of net metering, the power you pulled from the grid against the power your panels sent back.

What are the common true-up bill errors?

The first is a credit that didn't carry over. Many net-metering bills carry a balance from one statement to the next, either as banked kilowatt-hours (kWh) or as a dollar credit. If last year's statement ended with a balance and this one starts lower, with no payout or line explaining the change, the credit may have been dropped.

The second is arithmetic. The bill prints the kWh you imported and exported and the rates it used, so you can redo the math from those figures. If your result is well off from the charge on the bill, ask the utility why.

The third needs data from your own system. If your solar monitoring app records what your panels sent to the grid, compare its total for the period with the export figure on the bill. A large gap can mean a meter or data problem.

Customers have taken complaints like these to state regulators. In filings at the California Public Utilities Commission, one Southern California Edison customer says a final credit balance of $8,183.22 disappeared from the next bill, another says export credits were not applied consistently, and a San Diego Gas & Electric customer says faulty metering inflated true-up charges for years. These are the customers' allegations, not rulings. In Utah, Rocky Mountain Power told the state commission it posted $1,009.55 in net-metering credits to one account after a delay. The filings are linked under Sources.

Worked example (hypothetical)

Made-up figures to show the carryover check. Not anyone's real bill. A home on a kWh-banking plan, with leftover kWh carried into the next year and grid power at $0.30 per kWh:

Last year's statement ended with500 kWh banked
This year's statement started with0 kWh banked
Banked kWh that went missing500 − 0 = 500 kWh
Value of the missing credit500 × $0.30 = $150.00

Hypothetical figures only. Real tariffs can have time-of-use rates, tiers and minimum charges, so treat any check like this as a reason to ask, not proof.

How do I check my true-up bill myself?

  1. Get this year's true-up statement and last year's.
  2. Compare last year's ending balance with this year's starting balance. They should match unless the bill explains a payout or adjustment.
  3. Redo the year's math from the kWh and rates printed on the bill.
  4. If you have monitoring data, compare your exported kWh with the bill's export figure.
  5. If something is off, write to the utility's billing department with the figures and ask for the meter data and a corrected bill. Keep a dated copy of everything you send.

How long you have to dispute a bill, and whether you can take it to your state commission, depends on your state and utility. Check your utility's tariff rules and your state commission's complaint page; this guide doesn't give legal advice.