📌 Key Points
- Your utility decides your solar math: Florida’s investor-owned utilities credit solar exports at the full retail rate. Three of the state’s largest city-owned utilities now pay a fuel rate of roughly 3 to 3.5 cents instead.
- The dominoes: Jacksonville’s JEA switched in 2018, Gainesville’s GRU followed in 2024, and Orlando’s OUC change takes effect this fall for new solar customers.
- What pennies cost you: At a 3.25 cent export credit, every kilowatt-hour you send to the grid surrenders roughly 9 to 10 cents of value. An overproducing system can give up hundreds of dollars a year.
- A battery takes the value back: Storing your surplus and using it at night converts pennies-per-kWh exports into full retail savings, and adds hurricane backup on top.
- Grandfathered customers are protected: Existing JEA and GRU systems and OUC applications received by June 30, 2025 keep their current terms. Nothing here changes those bills today.
- Two holdouts remain: Lakeland Electric and Tallahassee still credit at retail, for now, though Tallahassee’s banked credits expire each year.
It depends entirely on who sends your electric bill. Florida now has two solar economies. If you’re served by an investor-owned utility like FPL, Duke, or TECO, state rules require your exports to be credited at the full retail rate. But if your bill comes from one of several city-owned utilities, your extra solar power may already be worth pennies on the dollar, and in Orlando, that shift arrives this fall. Here is the utility-by-utility map as of August 2026, what the change actually costs, and how a home battery takes the value back.
Which Florida Utilities Still Pay Full Price for Solar Exports?
| Utility | Electric Customers (approx.) | Export Credit for New Solar | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| FPL, Duke, TECO (investor-owned) | Most Florida homes | Full retail rate | Required by state rule |
| JEA (Jacksonville) | ~500,000 | Fuel rate, 3.25 cents/kWh | Changed April 2018 |
| GRU (Gainesville) | ~100,000 | Fuel adjustment rate, ~3.5 cents/kWh | Changed April 2024 |
| OUC (Orlando, St. Cloud) | ~250,000 | Below-retail community solar rate for 5 years, then fuel rate | Changes take effect Fall 2026 |
| Lakeland Electric | ~130,000 | Retail-rate crediting, annual excess at avoided cost | Traditional net metering |
| City of Tallahassee | ~125,000 | Full retail value; credits expire at annual anniversary | Traditional net metering |
The pattern matters as much as the snapshot. Municipal utilities set their own solar policies, because the state rule requiring full retail credit binds only the investor-owned utilities. Three of Florida’s biggest city utilities have used that freedom the same way, one after another.
Jacksonville Was First: JEA’s 3.25 Cent Rate
JEA ended retail crediting for new solar in April 2018. Under its Distributed Generation policy, energy you send to the grid is reimbursed at the avoided fuel cost, 3.25 cents per kWh, while the power you buy back costs several times that. Every exported kilowatt-hour surrenders roughly 9 to 10 cents of value. A system sending 400 kWh a month to the grid is giving up somewhere around $35 to $40 in value every month, over $400 a year.
It’s actually stricter than it sounds. JEA meters in 15-minute intervals, so unless your production and your consumption line up almost simultaneously, the mismatch gets the 3.25 cent treatment. The one bright spot: JEA offers a battery incentive worth thousands of dollars, a tacit acknowledgment that in Jacksonville, storing your solar power beats selling it.
Gainesville Followed: GRU’s 2024 Vote
In April 2024, the GRU Authority voted to move new solar customers from retail crediting to the fuel adjustment rate, about 3.5 cents per kWh and subject to change with fuel prices, down from the roughly 5 cent avoided-cost payout of the prior year. For context, GRU’s tier 1 energy rate alone ran about 8.5 cents before fuel and other charges, so new Gainesville solar owners now sell low and buy high on every exported kilowatt-hour. Systems permitted before the vote keep their original terms. Local solar installers saw the move coming, and they said so at the meeting: Jacksonville had run the same play six years earlier.
Orlando Is Next: OUC’s Change Lands This Fall
OUC’s board approved its TruNet Solar restructuring in December 2024, and per OUC’s rooftop solar program, the rate changes take effect in Fall 2026. New solar customers, meaning interconnection applications received on or after July 1, 2025, will be credited at OUC’s below-retail community solar rate for five years, and at the retail fuel rate after that. Applications received by June 30, 2025 keep today’s retail net metering for a 20-year grandfathering period.
Orlando adds a second wrinkle the other cities don’t have: DemandLevel pricing, which pairs a lower per-kWh rate with a new $5, $10, or $15 monthly fixed charge based on your home’s monthly peak usage. That turns your worst fifteen minutes of the month into a line item, and it hands a battery a second job. Storage doesn’t just shift your solar to nighttime use; it can shave those peaks and hold your fixed charge at the bottom tier.
The Holdouts: Lakeland and Tallahassee
Two of the state’s larger municipal utilities still credit solar at full value. Lakeland Electric runs traditional net metering for residential systems up to 10 kW, crediting exports at the retail rate with annual excess reconciled at avoided cost. City of Tallahassee Utilities credits excess power at full retail value including taxes, with one catch: credits bank month to month but expire at your annual net metering anniversary, with no cash payout, so consistent overproducers lose whatever they haven’t used.
If you’re a solar owner in either city, you have the full-value deal today. So did Jacksonville before 2018, Gainesville before 2024, and Orlando before this year. Municipal boards can change the terms with a vote, and three of the five largest already have. Energy you store in your own battery is the one part of the equation no board controls.
Already Grandfathered? Here’s What That Means
Read this section carefully before assuming the pennies problem applies to you, because it may not. JEA systems interconnected before April 2018 remain on the legacy net metering terms. GRU customers with systems permitted before the April 2024 vote keep their original billing. OUC customers whose interconnection applications were received by June 30, 2025 retain retail net metering for 20 years. If that’s you, nothing in this article changes your bill today. Your battery case is the same one every FPL and Duke customer has: outage protection, and insurance against the next vote, because grandfathering protects your rate, not your successor’s, and policies that changed once can change again.
How a Battery Changes the Math
A home battery converts your exports back into full-value power. Instead of selling your surplus at 3.25 cents and buying it back after dark at retail, you store it and use it yourself, recapturing those 9 to 10 cents on every shifted kilowatt-hour. In fuel-rate territory, maximizing self-consumption isn’t an optimization; it’s the whole financial game, and storage is how you play it. In Orlando, a battery like the Tesla Powerwall earns twice, shifting solar into the evening and shaving the demand peaks that set your new fixed charge. In Jacksonville, JEA’s battery incentive can offset part of the cost, and OUC has floated a battery incentive of its own reported to be limited to a few hundred homes, worth claiming early if it’s live when you read this. And everywhere in Florida, the same battery is what keeps your solar running through a hurricane outage. For the mechanics, see our guide to how home batteries work.
On a Co-op? Check One Line in Your Tariff
Florida’s electric cooperatives set their own rules too, and they vary widely. Find your co-op’s interconnection or net metering tariff and look for one thing: the rate paid for exported energy. If it says “retail” or credits kWh one for one, you have the full-value deal for now. If it says “avoided cost,” “fuel rate,” or quotes a cents-per-kWh figure well below what you pay, the battery math in this article is your math too.
Solar still works in every one of these territories. What changed is where the value lives: less in the wire to the grid, more in the storage on your wall. SunVena installs solar and battery systems in every corner of Florida, and we’ll run your exact utility’s numbers before recommending anything. Contact SunVena to see what your surplus power is really worth, and how to keep all of it.
