San Ramon solar: MCE quietly raises every export by 10 percent

MCE supplies the power. PG&E still owns everything you can touch.

San Ramon has been an MCE member community since 2018, one of 38 across Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, and Solano counties, with about 9,000 customer accounts locally per MCE's service area page. The split works like every California CCA: MCE procures generation, PG&E delivers it, meters it, bills it, and answers the phone during outages, per PG&E's CCA overview.

MCE's product lineup runs greener than the incumbent. Light Green has carried a minimum 60 percent renewable content since 2017, with the 2024 power mix showing 69 percent eligible renewables, against 23 percent in PG&E's 2024 mix, per MCE's energy sources page. Deep Green is the 100 percent renewable tier, half solar and half wind in 2024. The city government has bought Deep Green for municipal accounts since 2018, while about 6 percent of local customers have opted up. If a proposal leans on green virtue, remember the baseline here is already fairly clean; the solar case should stand on rates.

And the rates carry the argument fine. EIA's Table 6 shows a 2024 PG&E bundled residential average of 39.6 cents per kWh, and the March 2026 sheet prices the E-ELEC summer peak at 55 cents from 4 to 9 p.m. Those are the purchases a San Ramon roof gets to avoid.

Read the fee schedule twice: $566 on one line, $450 on another

San Ramon's Master Fee Schedule for FY 2026 to 2027 contains a quirk we have not seen elsewhere. The standard residential photovoltaic line reads $566 for an installation of "10kWth or less" plus $17 per additional kWth, printed in thermal units for what are photovoltaic permits, and it sits north of the $450 base figure in Government Code 66015. A separate line, "SolarAPP+ Permit Designs," charges exactly $450. Same city, same roof, $116 apart depending on which lane your project takes. Contractors quoting permit costs should say which line they mean.

Getting into the cheaper automated lane takes more than SolarAPP+ registration. Per the city's SolarAPP+ program page, a contractor must also email PermitCenter@sanramon.ca.gov to join the city's program eligibility list, hold an active San Ramon business license, and return the signed permit card after issuance. That eligibility-list step is unique among the SolarAPP+ cities we researched this week; an installer who has never done a San Ramon job may not know the inbox exists.

The city's compliance record backs the process up. The CEC's tracking dataset shows San Ramon on the SolarAPP+ platform with 2024 data filed and CalAPP funding marked "Not Awarded." Every other city in our batch took the $60,000 grant. San Ramon met the Government Code 65850.52 mandate on its own dime and still does the paperwork, which tells you something about how the Building and Safety Division runs. Non-automated projects follow the standard submittal instructions: plot plan, installation details, and structural calculations when the system exceeds 5 pounds per square foot.

MCE writes batteries a small monthly check

Beyond the export bonus, MCE's Solar Storage Credit pays $10 per month for batteries under 20 kWh and $20 per month for 20 kWh and larger, just for having enrolled storage on the Solar Billing Plan. Pair that with the permitting side, where the fee schedule prices a first residential energy storage unit at $396 and each additional unit at $35, and San Ramon has one of the more legible battery propositions we have documented: known permit cost, known monthly credit, and an E-ELEC peak worth 55 cents to shift into.

The rest of the 2026 incentive picture is the statewide story. The 25D homeowner credit is gone for any system whose installation wrapped after December 31, 2025, per the CRS note, so nobody should be pricing phantom federal money into a cash quote. SGIP's equity budget pays income-qualified households $3,100 for every solar kW and $1,100 for every storage kWh. The property tax exclusion lasts through fiscal 2025 to 2026, then sunsets January 1, 2027. And Civil Code 714 boxes in HOA review, relevant in a city with plenty of planned communities: written denials, a 45 day deemed-approval clock, and no conditions that pile on more than $1,000 in cost or trim output beyond 10 percent.

One market note without a dollar figure attached: the state's E-5 estimates put San Ramon's vacancy at 2.40 percent, the tightest in our batch, with 61.8 percent of units single detached. People stay put here, which lengthens the horizon over which a solar investment gets to pay for itself.

Pressure-test the proposal

The estimator pairs our San Ramon production model with statewide average pricing and cost assumptions. MCE's 10 percent bonus and monthly storage credits are not in it, so a real MCE bill model should modestly beat this tool on the export side. If a salesperson's number beats it by a mile, the gap is assumptions, and you should ask for them in writing.

We are a solar installer and we also partner with other solar companies.

Citations drawer

Every claim above traces back to one of these records, checked August 28, 2026.

• San Ramon SolarAPP+ program page and residential PV submittal instructions
• San Ramon Master Fee Schedule, FY 2026 to 2027 and Government Code 66015
• MCE service areas, MCE Solar Billing Plan, and MCE energy sources
• PG&E CCA overview, PG&E rate pricing, CPUC Net Billing Tariff, and ACC Plus resolution
• CEC permitting dataset and Government Code 65850.52
• CPUC SGIP, CRS IN12611, BOE property tax exclusion, and Civil Code 714
• EIA Table 6, California DOF E-5 estimates, and PVGIS