West Valley City solar in 2026: no credits, a 4.855 cent export rate, and a case that still closes

Net billing is not net metering, and the words carry money

Rocky Mountain Power's program ladder tells the story in three rungs, per its customer generation page. Schedule 135, the old grandfathered net metering, is closed to new applicants. Schedule 136, the transition program, is closed too. What remains open is Schedule 137, Net Billing Service, and it works on a different principle: every kWh you pull from the grid is billed at your full standard tariff, while every kWh you push out earns a fixed seasonal export credit in dollars. The two never trade at par.

An installer who says net metering when quoting a new West Valley City system is either careless with vocabulary or careless with your payback model. Neither is a good sign in someone about to drill into your roof.

How Schedule 137 actually moves money

The plumbing, from the tariff sheet: purchases bill at your standard residential schedule, exports accumulate as a dollar credit applied against Power and Energy Charges, and unused credits carry forward only within the Annualized Billing Period, which ends at the March meter read for most customers. Whatever balance remains then expires. Residential systems cap at 25 kW DC, and an executed interconnection agreement is required before the system operates.

That March expiry deserves more attention than it gets. A system that banks big spring export credits hoping to burn them the following winter will watch part of the bank vanish at the annual reset. The tariff rewards systems whose production and consumption roughly track each other month by month.

Zero plus zero: the full credit story, with dates

Utah once paid real money for residential solar, and the wind down was orderly enough to chart: a $2,000 maximum credit for 2017, $1,600 for 2018 through 2020, $1,200 for 2021, $800 for 2022, $400 for 2023, and nothing for systems installed in 2024 and beyond, per the Office of Energy Development. Batteries were never eligible. The State Tax Commission confirms the residential solar credit has expired, with carryforwards of previously earned credit allowed through 2027 under credit code 21. The federal side matches: P.L. 119-21 repealed the Section 25D credit, and the IRS position is that an install finished after December 31, 2025 claims nothing, per the Congressional Research Service brief.

So a 2026 West Valley City install collects zero state credit and zero federal credit. We would rather write that plainly than bury it under an asterisk. What the buyer gets instead is a hedge against tariff rates on 12.52 cent average power, purchased through one of the cheapest permits in the state. If a salesperson dangles a tax credit on a residential quote this year, ask them to name the statute. There will be a pause.

The fastest permitting pipeline on the valley's west side

Speed is the city's quiet advantage. Residential remodel and addition plan reviews run 3 to 5 working days, and the division aims to perform inspections within 24 hours of a request, per Building Inspections. When demand spikes, the city borrows capacity through mutual aid agreements with Sandy City, the Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District, and West Jordan under Utah Code 10-6-160(2), so a busy season does not become a stalled queue.

The handoff at the end is handled for you: once an inspector approves the electrical work, West Valley City contacts Rocky Mountain Power directly and authorizes power to the installation, with power to panel inspections available on at least 48 hours notice, per the city's electrical service page. Plenty of jurisdictions leave that utility coordination to the homeowner. This one closes the loop itself.

A boom and bust sun curve

Our West Valley City model lands at 1,551.1 kWh per year per installed kW, and the shape matters more than the total. June models 166.3 kWh per kW while December manages just 69.9, a winter trough deepened by valley conditions at 4,304 feet. The swing between best and worst month here is wider than in most cities we model.

PVGIS v5.2 model run by Solar Learning Lab on August 30, 2026, NSRDB radiation database. Fixed south facing mount, 30 degree tilt, 14 percent losses, downtown West Valley City coordinates. Your roof will differ. Tool documentation at PVGIS. The seasonal skew interacts badly with oversizing: big June exports at 4.855 cents cannot bail out a February bill, and whatever credit survives to the March read gets zeroed.

Run the numbers honestly

Fair warning about the tool below: it values every kWh at the average rate, and Schedule 137 does not. A right sized system tracks the estimate reasonably well because most production offsets imports. An oversized system will underperform it, because the surplus earns cents. Use the output to bracket system size, then demand a proposal that models imports and exports separately.

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

Citation stack

The documents behind this page, all pulled and read on August 30, 2026.

• West Valley City solar page, permit costs and fees, permit requirements, Building Inspections and electrical service and power authorization
• Rocky Mountain Power customer generation, Schedule 137 Net Billing Service and Schedule 1 residential rates
• Utah PSC order, Docket 17-035-61 and PSC tariff approval, Docket 26-035-T03
• Renewable Energy Systems Tax Credit, Tax Commission credit page and Utah Code 57-8a-701
• CRS IN12611 on the federal repeal, EIA Table 6, the census and city record and PVGIS model documentation