Does the Customer Benefit Contribution apply on Municipal utility?

No. The CBC is a Public Service Commission construct and municipal electric systems are not under PSC rate jurisdiction. Municipal utilities set their own terms — ask yours in writing.

Municipal Electric Systems · Flat rate

Municipal utility Municipal residential explained

Anyone served by one of New York's 47 municipal electric systems. If your electric bill comes from your village or a Board of Public Utilities rather than from National Grid or NYSEG, this is you.

The rate

Municipal Residential Service

Basic service charge

$10 / month

$120 a year, charged at zero kWh. No amount of solar removes it.

Filed Municipal electric system rate sheets · verified Apr 2026Municipal customer charges are typically well below investor-owned utility charges. The exact figure is set by your own village or city board.

All-in cost of energy

$0.08–$0.16 / kWh

Delivery plus supply plus surcharges. Divide your own bill total by your kWh to find your real number.

Filed Municipal electric system rate sheets · verified Apr 2026Municipal systems buy low-cost hydropower allocations from NYPA. Rates are often less than half of the neighboring investor-owned utility's.

Customer Benefit Contribution

Not applicable

A PSC construct. Municipal systems set their own terms.

VDER / NYISO zone

Varies — municipal systems are not on the VDER Value Stack

Determines Value Stack pricing where VDER applies instead of net metering.

Solar

What this rate does to solar economics

This is the part nobody tells you: cheap electricity makes solar payback worse, not better. Every kWh you offset is worth eight to sixteen cents here instead of twenty-plus next door in investor-owned territory. Payback periods commonly run 1.5x to 2x longer than a National Grid address a few miles away.

Show the arithmetic

A household using 10,000 kWh a year on Municipal residential pays roughly $1,200 for energy at the $0.12/kWh midpoint, plus $120 in basic service charges. A 100% offset removes the $1,200 and leaves the $120.

Midpoint arithmetic for illustration. Your all-in rate depends on your supply arrangement and the season.

Storage

What this rate does to battery economics

Cheap power makes arbitrage pointless. If you want storage in a municipal territory, buy it for outages and be honest with yourself about that.

Watch out

Catches on this rate

NY-Sun incentives generally do not apply to municipal-utility customers. NYSERDA programs are funded by a surcharge that municipal customers do not pay, so they do not draw from it.
State net-metering rules under the Public Service Law do not bind municipal systems. Each one sets its own policy, and some credit exports at avoided cost rather than retail.
The Customer Benefit Contribution does not apply, because that is a PSC construct.
An installer quoting you a NY-Sun incentive on a municipal address is either mistaken or hoping you will not check. Call your municipal utility and ask about their net-metering policy in writing before you sign anything.

Interconnection

Getting connected on Municipal utility

Each municipal system runs its own interconnection process. Some are a one-page form and a handshake with the lineman; others have no written residential process at all.
New York's net-metering statute binds investor-owned utilities. Municipal systems set their own export policy, and several credit exports at wholesale avoided cost rather than retail.
Get the net-metering policy in writing from your municipal utility before you sign a solar contract. This is the single highest-value phone call a municipal-territory homeowner can make.

Where this applies

Places on Municipal utility

28 New York counties have Municipal utility customers. These are the ones we have local pages for.

Questions

Municipal utility Municipal residential FAQ

What is Municipal utility Municipal residential?: Municipal Residential Service. Anyone served by one of New York's 47 municipal electric systems. If your electric bill comes from your village or a Board of Public Utilities rather than from National Grid or NYSEG, this is you. It carries a $10 monthly basic service charge and an all-in cost of $0.08–$0.16 per kWh once delivery, supply, and surcharges are combined.
How does Municipal residential affect solar payback?: This is the part nobody tells you: cheap electricity makes solar payback worse, not better. Every kWh you offset is worth eight to sixteen cents here instead of twenty-plus next door in investor-owned territory. Payback periods commonly run 1.5x to 2x longer than a National Grid address a few miles away.
Is a home battery worth it on Municipal utility Municipal residential?: Cheap power makes arbitrage pointless. If you want storage in a municipal territory, buy it for outages and be honest with yourself about that.
Am I on Municipal residential?: Look at the service classification printed on your Municipal utility bill — it will name the rate directly. Anyone served by one of New York's 47 municipal electric systems. If your electric bill comes from your village or a Board of Public Utilities rather than from National Grid or NYSEG, this is you.
Does the Customer Benefit Contribution apply on Municipal utility?: No. The CBC is a Public Service Commission construct and municipal electric systems are not under PSC rate jurisdiction. Municipal utilities set their own terms — ask yours in writing.

Next step

Find your own number

The band above is a range for the whole territory. Your all-in rate is one division away.

Official source: NYPA municipal power customers · NY Municipal Power Agency

Badge key:Filed — from a tariff, statute, or government datasetModeled — from a published model or datasetDerived — calculated by us from the inputs shownObserved — from proposals and bills readers send us

How this page is built

This is a generated page: the structure is shared across locations, the numbers are not. Every figure comes from the source cited beside it, with the date we last checked it. Nothing here is a quote, an appraisal, or tax advice, and none of it is specific to your roof.

Rates and incentive programs change. We re-verify utility tariffs and NYSERDA program status on a rolling schedule and stamp the date on each number rather than on the page, so you can see which specific figures are fresh. Full methodology · Program status tracker · About the Local Energy Playbook

Page content last reviewed April 2026.

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