ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Homeowners considering solar panels to combat high energy bills won’t be able to totally escape the utility. Even if you generate enough electricity to power your entire home, you’ll still be tied to your utility and paying some of its fees.
Nick Wodoo was getting sick of the sticker shock when he opened his RG&E bill so, a few years ago, he decided to add solar panels onto his home in Greece. “I wanted to save money and just become more cognizant of my usage,” Wodoo says.
Ed Kohlmeier has three solar arrays at his place in Sodus. “Trying to do something that’s friendly to the earth, friendly to the environment,” Kohlmeier says of why he decided to expand his use of solar.
Both men generate enough power to sustain themselves and charge their electric cars about 10 months out of the year. But they still get an RG&E bill every single month.
“What they do is they still charge you sorta what they describe as a fee to stay on the grid,” Kohlmeier explains. “I keep saying to myself, is that really fair cause I’m giving them electricity.”
Everyone pays a monthly customer fee of $23 whether you need to buy power or not. But those with solar panels also pay what’s called the Customer Benefit Charge, or the CBC.
“I have a 15-kilowatt system, I pay $1.30 per kilowatt of that system,” Wodoo explains. That’s another $20 every month. The CBC funds clean energy initiatives, energy efficiency programs and low-income assistance.
Not surprisingly, RG&E’s CBC rate has gone up over the last few years and state regulators allow it.
“They wanted to make sure that solar customers, folks who put solar on their roof. would still pay for their fair share of statewide benefit programs,” says Noah Ginsburg, the executive director of the New York Solar Energy Industries Association.
The rest of us pay for those programs, based on our usage, through the System Benefits Charge. When solar customers actually need to buy power from the utility, they have to pay both. “It should over the course of the year, work out that solar customers and non-solar customers are paying in the same amount to these program,” Ginsburg says.
But one thing is clear. “It does reduce the amount of money that customers who go solar save on their bill,” Ginsburg says.
If solar is something you’re considering, just keep in mind that even if you produce everything you need to power everything you have, you still can’t cut out the middle man. “They’re complaining of being over utilized so, I’m giving them extra and then I’m still being charged extra,” Wodoo says.
Ginsburg tells News10NBC that solar installations dropped off a bit at the end of 2025 when federal incentives were eliminated. But he says they’ve started to rebound over the last few months as utility prices have skyrocketed.
Thinking about going solar to escape high energy bills? You’ll still owe the Utility every month WHEC.com.
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