Going Solar as a JEA Customer

The statewide net metering rule that governs Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, and Tampa Electric applies to investor-owned utilities.⁴ JEA is a municipal utility and sits outside the statutory definition of a public utility for that purpose.³

State law instead requires each municipal electric utility selling electricity at retail to develop a standardized interconnection agreement and net metering program, with its own governing authority establishing the requirements and an annual participation report filed with the Commission.²

JEA's answer to that requirement is its Distributed Generation Policy, effective April 1, 2018.¹ If you find an older JEA net metering tier document online, check its date — the current policy is the one that governs.

This is the number that decides whether a Jacksonville solar proposal is realistic. Under JEA's policy, excess energy measured at the meter at the end of a billing period is credited at the fuel rate — the charge for the fuel component in JEA's electric rates, set annually during the budget process based on a fuel cost projection.¹

You buy energy from JEA at a retail rate that includes energy, demand, fuel, environmental and conservation components. You are credited for exports at only the fuel component.¹ The gap between those two numbers is the entire reason a JEA proposal should never be modeled the way an FPL or Tampa Electric proposal is modeled.

The practical consequence for system design: energy you use in your own home at the moment you generate it is worth far more than energy you send back. Self-consumption matters more here than in investor-owned territory.

• Credits are calculated per billing period as the kWh sent to JEA, measured at the meter at the end of the period, multiplied by the fuel rate — producing a dollar credit.
• JEA does not send a monthly payment. It carries the dollar balance forward, less any included taxes, and applies it to your electric service balance each period through the end of the calendar year.
• If a credit balance remains at year end, JEA applies it to any outstanding balance on the combined account and then pays the customer what is left. The same applies to a final bill when the account closes.
• JEA issues an IRS Form 1099-MISC totaling the previous year's monthly credits only to customers whose total credits are $600 or greater. Below that threshold the policy does not state that a form is issued.

All of the above is stated in JEA's policy for DG-1 systems.¹ Whether and how a credit affects your own return is a question for a tax professional, not your installer and not this page.

• DG-1 covers systems less than or equal to 2 MW gross power rating, which is the category virtually every home falls into. Larger categories exist for distribution- and transmission-level connections.
• Gross power rating is an AC figure, calculated for inverter-based systems as total installed DC nameplate capacity multiplied by 0.85.
• Larger installations carry additional obligations, including proof of $2 million general liability insurance and an externally accessible, lockable AC disconnect switch.
• Additional protection equipment beyond the disconnect switch may be required, determined through JEA's review.
• A power purchase agreement may be required for systems above 2 MW.

These provisions are set out in the Distributed Generation Policy.¹

Customers with solar PV systems installed under net metering by March 31, 2018 have the option of remaining net metering customers under JEA's December 2, 2014 policy. That grandfathered status expires 20 years after the current policy's effective date — March 31, 2038 — unless terminated earlier by voluntary withdrawal.¹

JEA states that the grandfathering is attached to the system rather than the customer, so the system remains a grandfathered net metered system when the home is sold and a new interconnection agreement is signed for the existing system. It is not transportable: a customer cannot move it to a new location.¹ A separate provision covers solar built into a new home contracted by December 31, 2017 and constructed by June 30, 2018.

If you are buying a Jacksonville home that already has solar, that distinction is worth confirming in writing before closing. The broader resale question is covered in selling a house with solar panels in Florida.

We could not confirm from JEA's published policy the current fuel rate in cents per kWh, JEA's residential base charge, the application fee for a residential-scale system, or whether JEA applies distinct rules to home battery storage. This page therefore states no JEA rate or price figure; the only dollar amounts here — the $600 tax-form threshold and the insurance minimum — are stated in the policy itself.

One limitation is about the document itself rather than its contents. The governing text we read is JEA's Distributed Generation Policy effective April 1, 2018, which states on its face that it supersedes JEA's December 2, 2014 policies. JEA's customer-facing solar pages still direct customers to that same policy and restate its core mechanics — a credit calculated at JEA's fuel rate multiplied by the kWh sent to JEA, credits accruing through the calendar year, and a payout of any remaining balance at year end — so we treat the 2018 policy as operative. JEA does not publish a revision history alongside it, and portions of JEA's site were unreachable from our tooling on our verification date, so we cannot rule out a later amendment we did not see.¹

Ask JEA directly for the current fuel rate in writing, and ask your installer which fuel rate their savings estimate assumes and whether it escalates. Those two answers determine most of the projected savings.