Bill Credits: The bill credit rate is the amount in dollars that participants receive from their electric utility for the electricity generated by their subscription. Bill credit rates are set by the Oregon Public Utility Commission.
Bill Savings: Calculated as the difference between bill credits and subscription fees.
Electricity Costs are based on a number of variable and fixed costs, including electricity charges, taxes, fees, credits and adjustments. Reference past utility bill(s) to help determine your annual costs.
Energy Adjustment (%) determines how much of your historical energy usage (up to 5 years) is sourced into the size of your solar subscription. This is calculated by either your project manager, Energy Trust of Oregon, or both. We recommend sizing your subscription at 80% of your total annual energy use. The final energy adjustment (%) is decided by your project manager, you, or both.
Household electricity consumption (kWh) is the amount of electricity your household consumes throughout the year. Reference past utility bill(s) to find your monthly (and annual) consumption.
Percent Savings are calculated as your annual solar savings divided by your annual electricity costs.
Program Administration Fees: Program fees include both the Program Administrator fee and the utility fee to administer various aspects of the Oregon Community Solar Program. Program fees are added to a Participant’s monthly bill and are expressed in $/kW-AC per month. Low-income customers are exempt from Program Fees.
Solar Production (kWh) is the amount of expected solar energy that you can access through your subscription every year. It is based on your historical energy usage (kWh) multiplied by your energy adjustment (%).
Subscription Fees: The subscription fee is a charge by the Project Manager that may be listed on a Participant’s utility bill or may be off-bill and reflects monthly cost to subscribe to the project. On-bill subscription models may be either capacity-based ($/kW) or production based ($/kWh). Subscription fees are calculated as your subscription fee rate ($/kWh) multiplied by total solar production (kWh) throughout the year.
Subscription Size (kW) is based on your household electricity consumption (kWh), energy adjustment (%) and solar panel production (kWh per kW). Any change to one or more of these variables will impact your total solar subscription size.