LADWP publishes two rate tables on the same page. The first is labeled Energy Charges: Tier 1 is $0.07142/kWh. The second is labeled Total Consumption Charge (includes Adjustment Factors): Tier 1, this summer, is $0.26408/kWh.
Both are real. Only the second one is the bill. The base charge is 27% of the total — a rep quoting it is running the comparison against a utility that appears to cost roughly a quarter of what it actually costs.
The real numbers, July through September 2026
R-1A standard residential, Total Consumption Charge, per kWh:
| Period | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan–Mar 2026 | $0.24771 | $0.30630 | $0.30630 |
| Apr–May 2026 | $0.24362 | $0.30221 | $0.30221 |
| June 2026 | $0.24362 | $0.30221 | $0.38922 |
| Jul–Sep 2026 | $0.26408 | $0.32267 | $0.40968 |
| Oct–Dec 2026 | not yet published |
Year over year, Tier 1 is up 8.65% for the summer period and was up 11.10% for January–March. Tier 3 summer is up 5.41%, to just under 41 cents.
Note the last row. As of this writing, LADWP has not posted an October–December 2026 figure. If you are modeling a Q4 close, there is no published number to model with — use the Jul–Sep rate and say plainly that it's the current one.
Where the other 19 cents comes from
The base energy charges — $0.07142 in Tier 1, $0.13001 in Tier 2, and $0.13001 in Tier 3 outside high season rising to $0.21702 in June–September — carry an effective date of July 1, 2019. They have not changed in seven years. (That seasonal split in the Tier 3 base is why low-season Tier 2 and Tier 3 totals come out identical.)
Everything since has been recovered through adjustment factors: Energy Cost, Electric Subsidy, Reliability Cost, Variable Energy, Capped Renewable Portfolio Standard Energy, Variable Renewable Portfolio Standard Energy, and Incremental Reliability Cost. Per the City of LA's Office of Public Accountability, the Energy Cost Adjustment is capped by prior decisions and can't cover the utility's costs on its own, which is why the stack of additional factors exists at all.
Subtract the base from the total and the arithmetic is clean. In July–September 2026, adjustment factors add a flat $0.19266/kWh — the identical adder in all three tiers. That's 73% of a Tier 1 summer charge. A year ago the same adder was $0.17164, so the adjustment component by itself rose 12.25%.
These factors are revised in January, April, July and October. That quarterly reset is the actual rate-change mechanism at LADWP, and it doesn't come with a press release.
Reading a LADWP bill without getting it wrong
Five things that change the number:
Tier thresholds depend on zone. Zone 1 (cooler areas) is 350 kWh in Tier 1, the next 700 in Tier 2, above 1,050 in Tier 3. Zone 2 (hotter areas) gets 500 / next 1,000 / above 1,500. On a bi-monthly bill, double all of it. Zone is assigned by service address, so two customers on the same street as a jurisdiction line can tier differently.
Season changes the shape, not just the price. High season is June–September; that's the only window where Tier 3 prices separately. October through May, Tier 2 and Tier 3 bill at the same rate — which means a customer's winter bill understates their summer exposure by more than the rate difference suggests.
The Power Access Charge is separate and lags. $2.30, $7.90 or $22.70 per month depending on the highest tier the customer reached in the prior year, resetting each October 1. It isn't in the consumption charge, and it doesn't fall the month usage falls.
There's a floor. Minimum charge is $10/month plus the adjustment factors.
The statement isn't all electricity. LADWP bills can carry power, water, trash and sewer together. If you take the statement total as the electric bill, you will overstate the thing a solar payment is competing against — and that overstatement is exactly what gets a deal cancelled at install when the homeowner does their own math. Back out the non-electric lines before you quote anything.
What this does to a comparison
Take a Zone 1 household at 940 kWh in July — roughly the Los Angeles monthly average EnergySage reports from real customer bills.
- Priced off the base energy charges: 350 × $0.07142 + 590 × $0.13001 = $101.70
- Priced off the Total Consumption Charge, plus a Tier 2 Power Access Charge: 350 × $0.26408 + 590 × $0.32267 + $7.90 = $290.70
That's an effective $0.309/kWh, against the $0.31/kWh and $294/month EnergySage reports from bills LA customers shared as of July 2026. Not an independent confirmation — the 940 kWh input is EnergySage's own figure, and EnergySage notes its sample skews toward higher-usage households shopping for solar. But it does tell you the all-in table produces bills of the right magnitude. The base table produces bills off by $189.
Now run the deal. Against $101.70, almost no solar payment pencils and the rep walks. Against $290.70, most of them do. Same house, same roof, same month — the only variable was which table the rep read.
LADWP won't warn you the way SCE will
LADWP is municipal. Rate changes are developed by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners and adopted by Los Angeles City Council ordinance — there is no CPUC proceeding and no advice letter. Reps who forecast SCE and PG&E increases off CPUC dockets have no equivalent instrument here.
The city's Office of Public Accountability does publish independent analysis of LADWP rate proposals, and it's worth reading — but it's commentary on proposals as they arise, not a docket you can check on a schedule to see what's coming.
The practical substitute is the quarterly adjustment-factor revision. Check the Total Consumption Charge table in the first week of January, April, July and October. That is the release schedule.
For context, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim metro at 28.6¢/kWh in December 2024, 62.5% above the then-national average of 17.6¢. Two caveats worth carrying: that metro spans LA and Orange counties, so it blends LADWP with SCE and with the Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena municipals — it is not an LADWP number. And it's the most recent edition BLS has posted for the metro, while the national average has since climbed to about 18.56¢ as of March 2026 (we mapped that here). Meanwhile the LADWP Board's September 2025 action was described as about 2.7% on the median residential electric bill. Hold those two facts next to the 8.65% Tier 1 increase above: a median-bill percentage and a tier-rate percentage are not the same measurement, and the one your customer feels is the second one.
The org-level version of this problem
Reading a rate sheet correctly is a rep skill. Having it in front of you before the appointment is an org function.
Most orgs don't supply it. The rep googles a rate, gets a headline average, and prices a deal against a number nobody's utility actually charges. Multiply that across a territory and it's not a training problem — it's a systematic understatement of every comparison the org runs, and it shows up as walk-aways the org never even hears about.
GRID is the $0 operating platform for solar dealers: the full toolset plus a vetted installer network priced on the network's pooled volume. We're paid on the install side of funded deals, so the platform costs your org nothing and we only win when your installs do. If your shop can't put current, correct utility numbers in your reps' hands, that's a solvable problem — and solving it is a 20-minute conversation.
The bottom line
LADWP's base energy charge hasn't moved since 2019. Its customers' rate has gone up every year anyway, quietly, four times a year, in a column labeled adjustment factors.
Quote the Total Consumption Charge. Add the Power Access Charge. Back out the water, trash and sewer. Then do your comparison — against the number the customer is actually paying, which through September is between 26 and 41 cents, and which resets again on October 1.
Sources: LADWP Residential Rates and Understanding Your Rates (rate tables and tier structure, retrieved July 30, 2026); City of Los Angeles Office of Public Accountability; EnergySage Los Angeles electricity data (updated July 5, 2026); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Western Information Office. Bill calculations are illustrative and use LADWP's published Zone 1 monthly thresholds; actual bills vary by zone, billing cycle, usage history and applicable programs. Rates change quarterly — verify against LADWP before quoting. GRID is a dealer operating platform and does not sell solar to homeowners. Commission and pricing structures vary by organization; figures are public utility data or illustrative, not GRID pricing.
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