What is National Grid SC-1?

Residential Service (flat). The default for essentially every single-family home in National Grid's upstate territory. If you never asked to change rates, you are on SC-1. 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.

Look at the service classification printed on your National Grid bill — it will name the rate directly. The default for essentially every single-family home in National Grid's upstate territory. If you never asked to change rates, you are on SC-1.

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.

National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) · Flat rate

National Grid SC-1 explained

The default for essentially every single-family home in National Grid's upstate territory. If you never asked to change rates, you are on SC-1.

The rate

Residential Service (flat)

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 2026Basic service charge. You pay it at zero kWh, and solar does not remove it.

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 2026Range spans the seasonal swing in default supply, which National Grid resets every month.

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

Full retail net metering applies to the energy component, so each exported kWh offsets an imported kWh at the same all-in price. That is the best export deal available in New York, and it is why upstate solar math works despite the weather.

Show the arithmetic

A household using 10,000 kWh a year on SC-1 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

SC-1 is flat, so there is no price arbitrage for a battery to capture. A battery on SC-1 earns its keep as outage insurance and nothing else. Anyone modeling 'battery savings' on this rate is modeling a rate you are not on.

Watch out

Catches on this rate

The basic service charge survives a 100% offset. A quote showing a $0 bill is wrong by at least $21 a month.
Default supply resets monthly. A proposal built on a January supply rate overstates savings; one built on an April rate understates them.
If an ESCO is your supplier, your all-in rate is not National Grid's — check the supply line on your bill before trusting any savings number.

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

35 New York counties have National Grid customers. These are the ones we have local pages for.

Questions

National Grid SC-1 FAQ

What is National Grid SC-1?: Residential Service (flat). The default for essentially every single-family home in National Grid's upstate territory. If you never asked to change rates, you are on SC-1. 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 SC-1 affect solar payback?: Full retail net metering applies to the energy component, so each exported kWh offsets an imported kWh at the same all-in price. That is the best export deal available in New York, and it is why upstate solar math works despite the weather.
Is a home battery worth it on National Grid SC-1?: SC-1 is flat, so there is no price arbitrage for a battery to capture. A battery on SC-1 earns its keep as outage insurance and nothing else. Anyone modeling 'battery savings' on this rate is modeling a rate you are not on.
Am I on SC-1?: Look at the service classification printed on your National Grid bill — it will name the rate directly. The default for essentially every single-family home in National Grid's upstate territory. If you never asked to change rates, you are on SC-1.
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.

Official source: Service rates · Distributed generation / interconnection · Outage map

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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