National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) · EV programme
National Grid Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging explained
Households with a Level 2 charger who can let National Grid influence when the car charges.
The rate
EV charging incentives
Basic service charge
$21 / month
$252 a year, charged at zero kWh. No amount of solar removes it.
Filed National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) residential rates · verified Apr 2026The underlying rate is still SC-1 or SC-1 TOU. EV programs sit on top; they are not a separate service classification.
All-in cost of energy
$0.19–$0.26 / kWh
Delivery plus supply plus surcharges. Divide your own bill total by your kWh to find your real number.
Filed National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) residential rates · verified Apr 2026
Customer Benefit Contribution
$0.69 / kW-DC / month
On a 9 kW system that is $75 a year, for the life of the array.
Filed Customer Benefit Contribution (CBC) rates · verified Jan 2026Applies to net-metered systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2022. National Grid's is the lowest CBC of the six investor-owned utilities.
VDER / NYISO zone
A (West), C (Central), D (North), E (Mohawk Valley), F (Capital)
Determines Value Stack pricing where VDER applies instead of net metering.
Solar
What this rate does to solar economics
No direct interaction. Charging the car from the array during the day is a consumption decision, not a rate decision — on flat SC-1 with net metering, a kWh is a kWh whenever you use it.
Show the arithmetic
A household using 10,000 kWh a year on Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging pays roughly $2,250 for energy at the $0.23/kWh midpoint, plus $252 in basic service charges, plus $75 in CBC once a 9 kW array is interconnected. A 100% offset removes the $2,250 and leaves the $327.
Midpoint arithmetic for illustration. Your all-in rate depends on your supply arrangement and the season.
Storage
What this rate does to battery economics
EV programs are behavioral incentives paid per enrolled charging session or per month. A home battery does not qualify for them, and a salesperson bundling the two is conflating separate programs.
Watch out
Catches on this rate
- National Grid's Make-Ready infrastructure funding is aimed at commercial, workplace, and multi-family sites. Single-family home charger installs are generally not eligible.
- If an installer says 'National Grid pays for your charger,' ask which program, and check it on National Grid's EV hub. It is usually a misstatement.
Interconnection
Getting connected on National Grid
- Residential systems under 25 kW-AC run through the standardized interconnection process. Expect the utility-side review itself to be uneventful; the delay is usually the meter swap.
- The bi-directional meter exchange is scheduled separately from the electrical inspection. Systems routinely sit finished-but-off for weeks waiting on it. Ask your installer who is responsible for chasing that appointment.
- Permission to Operate is the date that matters for your net-metering vintage, not the install date.
- Rural single-phase laterals in the Southern Tier and North Country hit hosting-capacity limits well below what an urban circuit tolerates.
Application to Permission to Operate
4–12 weeks
Utility-side only. Permitting and install scheduling are on top.
Observed GridReady quote and bill review sample · verified Apr 2026Application to Permission to Operate, on completed residential jobs homeowners have reported to us. Excludes time the installer spent on permitting.
Where this applies
Places on National Grid
Questions
National Grid Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging FAQ
- What is National Grid Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging?
- EV charging incentives. Households with a Level 2 charger who can let National Grid influence when the car charges. It carries a $21 monthly basic service charge and an all-in cost of $0.19–$0.26 per kWh once delivery, supply, and surcharges are combined.
- How does Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging affect solar payback?
- No direct interaction. Charging the car from the array during the day is a consumption decision, not a rate decision — on flat SC-1 with net metering, a kWh is a kWh whenever you use it.
- Is a home battery worth it on National Grid Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging?
- EV programs are behavioral incentives paid per enrolled charging session or per month. A home battery does not qualify for them, and a salesperson bundling the two is conflating separate programs.
- Am I on Charge Smart NY / EV managed charging?
- Look at the service classification printed on your National Grid bill — it will name the rate directly. Households with a Level 2 charger who can let National Grid influence when the car charges.
- What is the Customer Benefit Contribution on National Grid?
- $0.69 per kW-DC per month, charged on net-metered systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2022. On a 9 kW system that is about $75 a year, every year, for the life of the array. It is charged on installed capacity rather than on export, which is why oversizing costs you twice.
Next step
Find your own number
The band above is a range for the whole territory. Your all-in rate is one division away.
- Electric bill checkWork out your own all-in $/kWh from a real bill, not from an average.
- Full bill reviewLine-by-line read of delivery, supply, and surcharges.
- ESCO mailer decoderIf a third-party supplier is on your bill, this works out whether it is costing you.
Official source: Service rates · Distributed generation / interconnection · Outage map
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.