It's the most common question we hear from California homeowners considering solar: do I actually need a battery, or is that just an upsell? The honest answer is "it depends" — but under today's rules, storage makes sense for more homes than it used to. Here's how to think about it.
Why batteries got more important
California's current net-billing rules pay you far less for the extra power you export to the grid during the day than they did under the old net-metering programs. That flips the math: instead of selling your midday surplus back cheaply, it's usually worth more to store it and use it yourself in the expensive evening hours. A battery is what makes that possible.
What a battery actually does for you
Three things. First, self-consumption — you use your own solar power at night instead of buying it back. Second, it shields you from the priciest peak-rate hours on time-of-use plans. Third, backup — when the grid goes down, a battery keeps your essentials running (solar alone shuts off during an outage for safety). For homes in areas prone to Public Safety Power Shutoffs, that last one carries real weight.
When you might skip it
The clearest case for going solar-only is if your utility doesn't fall under NEM 3.0. Customers of the big investor-owned utilities — PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E — are on NEM 3.0's net-billing rules, where exported power earns much less. But if you're served by a municipal utility like LADWP here in Los Angeles, you're under that utility's own net-metering program, which can still credit your exports more favorably — so a battery may be less essential just for the savings math (it still adds backup power during outages).
For the majority of Californians, though, the switch from NEM 2.0 to NEM 3.0 is exactly why solar-and-battery combos now make the most sense. Under NEM 3.0, storing your own power to use later beats exporting it for a small credit — so if you're on one of the investor-owned utilities, pairing solar with a battery is usually the smarter long-term move.
Sizing it right
The goal isn't the biggest battery — it's one matched to your evening usage and what you want to back up. Oversizing wastes money; undersizing leaves you buying peak power anyway. That's a conversation to have with your actual usage data in hand.
Paxton Energy designs solar and battery systems around how your home really uses power, and we'll tell you honestly whether storage is worth it for you today. Start with a free assessment.