If you’re getting solar quotes in North Carolina right now, at least one of them has a December 31, 2026 date on it and a sentence about locking in before the window closes.
The date is real. It just isn’t yours.
December 31, 2026 is the day existing solar homeowners on the old Rider NM get moved onto Rider NMB. Automatically. Rider NM closed to new customers back on September 30, 2023, so if you’re on it, you’ve had panels for years and you don’t need to do anything. No form, no call, no signature. Your billing changes and you stay on the better of Duke’s two current arrangements.
That is the whole event. Somebody turned it into your buying deadline.
What the state actually says
North Carolina’s Public Staff, the agency that represents utility customers, lays out three riders. Rider NM is the closed legacy one. Rider RSC, Residential Solar Choice, went live October 1, 2023 and is the default for new solar. Rider NMB, the Bridge, came out of a settlement between Duke Energy and solar installers, and it’s the one everybody wants.
Here’s what they don’t tell you at the kitchen table. The Public Staff describes Rider NMB as open to a limited number of customers each year, and says that when that limit is reached, new customers will be required to take service under Rider RSC.
A quota. Not a date.
Read that again next to the sales pitch. A quota can fill in March. It can fill in July. Nobody hands you a countdown clock for a headcount, which is why the industry reaches for a calendar date instead. The date sounds urgent and it’s easy to say. The real constraint is harder to say out loud because the honest version is “we don’t know, so go now.”
What the difference is worth
Rider RSC puts you on a Time-Of-Use rate with Critical Peak Pricing. Translation: what you pay per kilowatt hour swings with when you use power, and the priciest hours are the ones the utility declares. RSC also stacks on a minimum monthly bill, non-bypassable charges for storm recovery and cyber security, and a grid access fee once your system clears 15 kW AC.
Rider NMB carries the minimum bill too. It does not force you onto Time-Of-Use with Critical Peak Pricing. For a household that’s out all day and runs the dryer at 6pm, that single difference is the whole payback argument.
Then there’s the clock nobody reads. Your 15 years on NMB run from the date of your interconnection request application, not from the day the system turns on. Every week your installer sits on that paperwork is a week off the back end.
Ask these two questions
Ask any installer quoting you which rider they’re putting you on, in writing, and what happens to your price if you land on RSC instead. An installer who answers with a December date has answered a question you didn’t ask.
Then ask for the date they will submit your interconnection request, also in writing. That single date sets your rider and starts your 15 years.
Run both scenarios against your real power bill in our solar savings calculator before you sign anything. Price the RSC outcome, not just the one on the glossy sheet. If the deal only works on the Bridge rider and nobody will guarantee you the Bridge rider, you’ve priced a system you might not be buying.
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