Selling Your Solar Power

Eligibility

Open to all qualified customer-owners in Walton EMC’s service territory.

Customer-owners wanting to sell electricity to Walton EMC produced by a renewable resource generation facility must first be eligible subject to the terms of the Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001.

In addition, the generation facility must:

1. Be owned and operated by a Walton EMC customer-owner.
2. Be located on the customer-owner’s premises.
3. Be connected to and operate in parallel with Walton EMC’s distribution facilities.
4. Be intended to offset part or all of the customer-owner generator’s requirements for electricity.
5. Have a peak generating capacity of no more than 50 kilowatts for residential applications or 100 kilowatts for commercial applications.
6. Use solar photovoltaic, fuel cell, hydro or wind generation.

Safety, Power Quality and Interconnection Requirements

The customer-owner is responsible for ensuring a safe and reliable interconnection with the co-op’s grid. All costs of the interconnection are paid by the customer-owner.

Each interconnection request is handled individually by the cooperative.

• Interconnection Application/Agreement (PDF)
• Underground Interconnection Diagram (PDF)
• Overhead Interconnection Diagram (PDF)

Metering Cost

Walton EMC will install single directional or bi-directional metering depending on how the renewable generation system is connected to the co-op’s distribution system. The customer-owner is responsible for the incremental costs of the metering equipment and its installation, currently $800.

Bi-directional metering – separately measuring the amount of electricity supplied by the co-op and the amount fed back to the co-op by the customer-owner’s generation system during each billing period using the same meter. This metering method is used when the generation system is connected to our system on the customer-owner’s side of the meter.

Single directional metering – measuring electricity either produced or consumed during each billing period using normal metering practices. This metering method is used when the generation system is connected to Walton EMC’s system on the cooperative’s side of the meter. The meter used for the connection and measuring of energy generated will be placed on the same tariff as the customer-owner requesting the connection.

Payment for Energy

Bi-directional metering

1. Electricity supplied by the co-op to the customer-owner will be charged using the co-op’s tariffs plus the service charge. (View Member Generated Renewable Resource Rate Schedule – Cogen 2010)
2. When electricity generated by the customer-owner’s generation system flows back on the co-op’s grid, the customer-owner will be billed for appropriate customer charges for that billing period (as defined in the appropriate tariff) and credited for all kilowatt-hours supplied during the billing period at avoided energy cost with this kilowatt-hour credit appearing on the bill for the billing period.

Single directional metering

1. The co-op will measure electricity produced or consumed during the billing period and charge the metering cost.
2. When electricity is generated by the customer-owner for the billing period, the customer-owner will be compensated at avoided energy cost. The co-op will only make payments based on metered energy delivered to the co-op’s grid.
3. The amount billed or credited to the customer-owner will be the net of the charge to the customer-owner’s regular service (according to the tariff with actual read energy) plus the metering cost less the metered energy times the avoided energy cost.

If the customer-owner develops a credit balance during a billing period, the credit balance will be applied to next month’s billing charges.

Avoided Energy Cost

Credits made to customer-owners for generation to the co-op’s grid are $0.04247 per kilowatt hour with an effective date of 7/1/20 through 12/31/25.

Walton EMC Purchase Requirements

Walton EMC is only required to purchase energy from eligible distributed generation facilities on a first-come, first-served basis until the cumulative generating capacity of all renewable energy sources from customer-owners equals 0.50 % of the co-op’s annual peak demand in the previous year.

Additional energy may be purchased by the co-op at a cost agreed to by it and the providing customer-owner.