California solar installer marketing written for the bill each homeowner actually gets

What a homeowner saves depends on which utility sends the bill. NEM 3.0 covers only three of them, so one statewide savings ad will be wrong for some of your buyers.

The Net Billing Tariff, which homeowners call NEM 3.0, belongs to three investor-owned utilities. The CPUC's 2022 fact sheet named them: Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. The CPUC adopted the decision on December 15, 2022. It applies to requests to connect a system filed on or after April 15, 2023. Publicly owned utilities write their own export rules, and three of them serve large solar markets.

Here is what an exported kilowatt-hour earns in five big California markets:

• Los Angeles, inside the city: LADWP runs its own net metering rider. Extra energy becomes a credit against later charges "except taxes and minimum charges", say its NEM guidelines. Those guidelines were last changed in April 2021, so confirm the current rider before an ad quotes it.
• Sacramento: SMUD pays $0.0960 per kWh for exports from June 1, 2026, the same at every hour, under its export tariff. SMUD's rate covers systems meant to offset up to 110% of the home's own use.
• Riverside, inside the city: Riverside Public Utilities sets its export credit, which it calls the avoided cost of energy, at $0.0678 per kWh from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. Homes in its Self-Generation Program go on the D-TOU rate. There the credit is paid by time of day, from 5.41 cents a kWh off-peak to 9.95 cents on-peak in summer. Riverside's program allows a system up to 150% of the home's past use.
• San Diego: SDG&E's Solar Billing Plan, with a twist. Where San Diego Community Power or Clean Energy Alliance buys the power, that agency sets the export credit for generation, SDG&E explains.
• Fresno: PG&E's Solar Billing Plan on the Electric Home rate. The peak runs from 4 to 9 in the evening, and summer runs from June to September.

So a single statewide "NEM 3.0 savings" ad is wrong in Los Angeles city, Sacramento and Riverside before anyone reads the fine print. Give each tariff a page of its own: the Solar Billing Plan, the LADWP rider, SMUD's export rate and Riverside's D-TOU credit. Put an address check at the top, and point each ad group at the page for its area. Outside those three cities, the utility can change at a city line. Check the address, not the city name.

Most buyers call to ask about savings. California has rules for recording that call and for the paperwork that follows it.

• Recording. Every party must agree before a confidential call is recorded, under California's recording law, which sets fines of up to $2,500 per violation. It counts a business as a person. A companion rule applies the same consent to any call on a cell or cordless phone, confidential or not. Call tracking, training recordings and an AI receptionist that records all need a notice before recording starts. Have counsel approve its wording.
• Spanish disclosures. CSLB publishes its solar disclosure documents in English and Spanish, for both the three-day and five-day cancel periods. If an ad runs in Spanish, the phone, the form reply and the follow-up text should too. That way the buyer never switches languages halfway to a signature.
• Translated contracts. The February 2026 judgment in the San Francisco District Attorney's settlement also bars the company from failing to translate a written contract into the language it was negotiated in. A Spanish pitch that ends on an English-only contract is the gap that judgment names.

If buyers drop off on after-hours calls, see how our AI receptionist answers them. Give it the same recording notice.

Many California prospects already own panels. Three groups of them each need a page written for them.

• Buyers of a home that came with solar. On the Solar Billing Plan, the CPUC decision ties the nine-year legacy period to the customer who installed the system, not to the system. A new owner who is not the original customer's spouse or domestic partner gets no legacy period, says SCE's attestation form. Older NEM systems work the other way. Their 20-year legacy period began when the panels were first installed and connected, and a buyer who moves in inherits the time left, SDG&E notes. In Riverside, a new customer in a home on an old NEM agreement goes onto the Self-Generation rate (Riverside Public Utilities). A page for recent buyers, and for the real estate agents who list solar homes, explains the new bill and where a battery fits.
• Owners of systems nearing 20 years. SDG&E moves an account to the Solar Billing Plan when the system reaches the end of its 20-year NEM legacy period. By our arithmetic, a system connected in 2006 reaches 20 years in 2026. Your own install records are the first list to work.
• Homes built since 2020. California's 2019 building energy standards, in effect from January 1, 2020, require solar on new homes. Under the 2022 Energy Code, in effect from January 1, 2023, a new single-family home must generally have panels. Exceptions include a roof with too little sun. The home must also be ready for a battery, though the code does not require one. These owners are prospects for a battery or more panels, not a first system, and the ad should open with that.

Each group searches in its own words. A buyer asks about panels on a house they just bought, and a new-build owner asks about a battery. So each group gets its own landing page and ad group. Confirm legacy terms with the utility, and any code question with counsel, before a page promises them.