Helping Riverside County homeowners navigate SCE rates and solar options since 2020
If you opened your SCE bill recently and noticed a new line item called "Base Services Charge" under your Delivery Charges section, you are not alone. Starting November 2025, Southern California Edison began charging every residential customer a fixed monthly fee of $24.15 regardless of how much electricity they use. No usage. No reduction. Every month, every customer.
This charge is not a billing error. It is the result of California Assembly Bill 205, signed into law in 2022 and implemented by SCE and PG&E starting in 2025. Understanding it will help you make better decisions about your electricity costs and whether solar changes the math for your household.
1. What Is the SCE Base Services Charge and Why Does It Exist?
The Base Services Charge (BSC) is a fixed monthly delivery fee that covers the cost of keeping your home connected to the SCE grid. Think of it as the infrastructure access fee: power lines, transformers, meters, billing systems, and the portion of grid maintenance that does not vary with how much electricity flows through those lines.
Before AB 205, those infrastructure costs were bundled into the per-kWh rate. That meant low-energy households (renters, efficiency-focused homeowners) paid much less toward grid maintenance than high-energy households. AB 205 required the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to unbundle the fixed costs into a separate charge that everyone pays equally.
The AB 205 Tradeoff
New $24.15/month fixed charge added to every residential bill, regardless of usage.
Per-kWh rates decreased approximately 10% to offset the new fixed charge for average users.
For average energy users, these two moves roughly cancel out. For high-energy households, the per-kWh reduction saves more than $24.15 per month and the overall bill may be lower. For low-energy households, the fixed charge exceeds the per-kWh savings and the bill may be higher.
The key detail: the Base Services Charge appears under the Delivery Charges section of your SCE bill. It is not part of the generation or supply charge. It is the fee for being connected to the grid at all.
This is separate from the ongoing SCE rate increases driven by infrastructure investment and wildfire costs. The BSC is a structural change to how costs are collected, not just another annual rate hike.
2. Who Pays It and How Much
The amount you pay depends on whether you are enrolled in an income-based discount program:
If you are a standard residential customer, you pay $24.15 every month. That adds up to $289.80 per year in fixed grid access fees before you use a single kilowatt-hour.
CARE (California Alternate Rates for Energy) is available to households with income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. FERA (Family Electric Rate Assistance) is for households slightly above the CARE threshold with three or more people. If you think you qualify, you can apply directly through SCE's assistance programs page.
For the rest of Riverside County homeowners reading this, $24.15 per month is the number that applies. It is fixed. It does not go up or down based on usage, season, or time of day. It is simply on your bill every month for being connected to the grid.
3. Does Solar Eliminate the $24.15 Base Services Charge?
The $24.15/month fixed fee applies to every customer connected to the SCE grid, including solar customers. As long as your home is grid-tied, the charge is on your bill every month.
This is worth saying clearly because some solar sales pitches imply your SCE bill can go to zero. That was never quite true under NEM 3.0, and it is even less true now that the Base Services Charge exists as a hard floor on your monthly bill.
The reason is simple: the BSC is a delivery charge, not a generation charge. Solar panels reduce the electricity you buy from SCE (the generation/supply portion), but you are still physically connected to SCE's wires and equipment. That connection costs money to maintain, and the BSC is how SCE recovers those costs from every grid-tied customer equally.
Even a homeowner with a perfectly sized solar system that covers 100% of their annual consumption will still owe $24.15 every month simply for remaining connected to the grid. Over a 25-year solar system life, that adds up to roughly $7,245 in fixed charges that solar alone cannot eliminate.
This does not mean solar is a bad deal. It means you should understand the complete picture before making a decision. See our full SCE rate increases breakdown to understand all the charges on your bill, not just the fixed fee.
4. How Solar Still Helps Significantly
The Base Services Charge is $24.15 per month. A typical Temecula homeowner with a $300-$400 SCE bill is paying $275-$375 in variable charges on top of that fixed fee. Solar addresses the variable portion, which is the larger share of the bill.
Here is a realistic breakdown for a Temecula homeowner using 900 kWh per month at a blended rate of approximately 34.5 cents per kWh (average residential rate):
A well-sized solar system can eliminate most of the $310.50 in energy charges. With a solar PPA, that variable portion gets replaced by a lower solar rate typically in the low-to-mid 20-cent range. The math still works strongly in favor of solar even with the $24.15 floor.
Additionally, the per-kWh rate is not staying at 34.5 cents. SCE has CPUC-authorized rate increases projected to push that rate toward 40 cents in 2026 and 43 cents in 2027. See the full rate increase timeline. A solar PPA locks in a starting rate with a small annual escalator, typically 3.5% or less, well below SCE's historical 7-8% annual increases. The savings gap widens every year.
The $24.15 Base Services Charge is a floor, not a ceiling. Solar can reduce your total monthly cost from $350+ down to $24.15 plus your PPA payment, which for most households is still 30-40% less than the current SCE bill.
5. Solar Plus Battery: The Closest You Can Get to Eliminating Your SCE Bill
While solar alone cannot remove the $24.15 fixed charge, solar paired with battery storage gets you as close as technically possible to eliminating your SCE bill as a grid-tied customer.
Here is how the math changes with battery storage:
Solar panels generate during the day
Your solar system produces power during daylight hours, offsetting daytime consumption directly. Without a battery, surplus generation is exported to the grid for credit under NEM 3.0 (at reduced rates compared to what you paid).
Battery stores surplus for evening use
With a battery, surplus daytime generation charges the battery instead of being exported. That stored power covers evening and overnight consumption, the hours when SCE's TOU rates are highest (up to 74 cents/kWh during peak periods).
Grid consumption drops to near zero
A properly sized solar plus battery system can reduce grid purchases to nearly nothing most days. Your SCE bill gets reduced to the $24.15 Base Services Charge plus minimal grid usage charges on cloudy periods or high-demand days.
Realistic Monthly Bill With Solar + Battery
Compared to $300-$400+ with SCE only. Estimates vary by system size, usage, and PPA terms.
For Riverside County homeowners who want the maximum reduction in their SCE bill, solar plus battery is the answer. The California SGIP rebate program still offers incentives for battery storage in SCE territory, which can significantly reduce the cost of adding a battery to a solar system. Read more about battery incentives in our solar battery guide for California NEM 3.0 customers.
The $24.15 Base Services Charge is a permanent feature of your bill as long as you remain grid-connected. The question is not how to eliminate it but how to minimize everything else around it. Solar plus battery is the most effective tool available to Riverside County homeowners today.
The Base Charge Plus Rising kWh Rates
The Base Services Charge is one piece of a larger cost picture. SCE's per-kWh rates are projected to increase 7-8% per year through 2028 under CPUC-authorized proceedings. By 2027, Tier 1 rates could reach 43 cents per kWh. That means the variable portion of your bill grows every year even if you hold your consumption flat.
Fixed charge plus rising per-kWh rates means every year you wait to go solar, the bill you are trying to escape gets larger. The savings from solar grow larger every year too, but so does the cost of doing nothing.