How does net metering work in Florida?

If you are a customer of a Florida investor-owned utility, energy your solar system exports to the grid is credited to your account in kilowatt-hours and offsets energy you draw later. Any credit still unused at the annual settlement is paid out at the utility’s avoided-cost rate, which is well below the retail rate. Your system must also be sized so it is not expected to generate more than 115% of your annual consumption.

The mechanism

Solar production rarely lines up with household consumption. You generate most at midday and consume most in the evening. Net metering resolves the mismatch by letting the grid act as an accounting buffer: exported kilowatt-hours become credits, and those credits offset the kilowatt-hours you import later.

Within the year, that offset is effectively at retail value — a credited kilowatt-hour cancels a kilowatt-hour you would otherwise buy. At the annual settlement, leftover credit is treated differently and bought out at the utility’s avoided-cost rate. This is the reason oversizing a system is poor economics rather than free insurance: the surplus is not worth what your consumption is worth.

Interconnection tiers

Tiers defined by Florida PSC Rule 25-6.065 for investor-owned utilities
Tier	System size	What it means for a homeowner
Tier 1	10 kW or less	The simplest path, and where most residential rooftop systems sit.
Tier 2	Over 10 kW up to 100 kW	Additional insurance and study requirements. Larger homes with high consumption can land here.
Tier 3	Over 100 kW up to 2 MW	Commercial scale. Not relevant to a typical home.

The tier boundary at 10 kW is worth knowing before you design a system. A home that could justify 11 kW on consumption alone may still be better served by staying at or under the Tier 1 threshold once the extra process is priced in.

The rule does not cover every Florida utility

Rule 25-6.065 binds investor-owned utilities. Municipal utilities and cooperatives set their own programmes. In practice this means two Florida homeowners with identical roofs and identical consumption can face genuinely different solar economics depending on who bills them.

FPL, Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric are investor-owned and operate under the rule.
JEA in Jacksonville and OUC in Orlando are municipal utilities and run their own programmes.
Parts of Florida, including much of Lee County, are served by cooperatives with their own terms.

Common questions

Do I get paid cash for the power I export?

Not month to month. Exports accrue as kilowatt-hour credits that reduce later consumption. Cash only enters at the annual settlement, for credit you never used, and at the avoided-cost rate rather than the retail rate.

Why can I not install a much bigger system and sell the surplus?

Two reasons. The rule requires the system to be sized to your expected annual consumption within 115%, and the surplus would be settled at avoided cost, so the extra capacity would earn a fraction of what the rest of the array earns.

Does a battery change how net metering works?

It changes what you export rather than how exports are credited. Storing midday production for evening use means you import less and export less. Where net metering is generous, the financial case for a battery leans more on resilience than on arbitrage.

Sources

What each source supports on this page, and when we last verified it. Every source we use, with its freshness policy, is listed in the source register.

Florida Administrative Code Rule 25-6.065, Interconnection and Metering of Customer-Owned Renewable Generation

Florida Public Service Commission

Net-metering eligibility, interconnection tiers and system-sizing limits for customers of Florida investor-owned utilities.

Verified August 16, 2026

FPL net metering guidelines and customer-owned renewable generation tariff

Florida Power & Light

FPL interconnection tiers, sizing limits and treatment of exported energy.

Verified August 16, 2026

How does net metering work in Florida?