California NEM 3.0 slashed solar export payments by 75%, breaking the financial model for new residential solar

California's Net Energy Metering 3.0 policy, effective April 2023, pays solar homeowners roughly 5-8 cents per kWh for exported electricity instead of the 25-35 cents per kWh retail rate paid under NEM 2.0, a reduction of approximately 75%. So what? The payback period for a new residential solar system in California jumped from 5-7 years to 10-15 years overnight, making solar unfinanceable for middle-income homeowners who need a sub-10-year payback to justify the investment. So what? California residential solar installations dropped roughly 80% in the months following NEM 3.0, devastating installer businesses and causing thousands of layoffs in the state's largest solar market. So what? Battery storage became mandatory to make solar economics work under NEM 3.0 (shifting self-consumption to avoid exports), but adding a $10,000-$15,000 battery to an already expensive system prices out the homeowners who would benefit most from reduced electricity bills. So what? The wealth gap in solar adoption widens: only affluent homeowners can afford solar-plus-storage, while lower-income ratepayers continue subsidizing grid infrastructure through rates that increase 5-8% annually. So what? Other states watch California's policy shift as a blueprint, and similar net metering rollbacks are spreading, threatening to collapse residential solar markets nationwide. The problem persists because utilities argue (with some validity) that NEM 2.0 created a cost shift from solar to non-solar ratepayers, but the NEM 3.0 correction overshot so dramatically that it destroyed the market rather than rebalancing it, and regulators lack the modeling tools to find the equilibrium export rate.