El Paso Electric Company - Net Metering

Summary

El Paso Electric (EPE) has offered net metering to customer-generators since September 2011.

Eligibility and Availability

To qualify, distributed renewable generation (DRG) owners must either:

• interconnect an apartment house occupied by low-income elderly tenants that qualifies for master metering, where the DRG is expected to generate at least 50% of the building's annual electricity use or 
• have a qualifying facility with a design capacity of not more than 50 kilowatts (kW).

Additionally, the DRG facility must be rated to produce an amount of electricity less than or equal to the estimated annual electricity consumption (for new apartment house or qualifying facility) or the amount of electricity the owner consumed in the year before installing the DRG facility.

EPE will install, at no cost to the customer, a bi-directional meter, although interconnection charges may still apply.

Net Excess Generation

At the end of each billing period, El Paso Electric pays the customer-generator for net excess generation at its avoided cost rate via a credit to the monthly bill. If the credits on an account become greater than $50, EPE sends the customer-generator a refund check for the balance.