If someone in your home relies on medical equipment or needs extra heating or cooling for a medical condition, SDG&E’s Medical Baseline Allowance can lower your electricity costs — and it changes the math on solar and battery, too.
The program is often misunderstood. It is not a flat dollar discount, and it doesn’t make electricity free. It gives you more low-cost energy and, for some households, extra protection during outages when it’s paired with a battery. This guide explains how the allowance works in 2026, who qualifies, and how solar plus storage fits alongside it.
What the Medical Baseline Allowance actually is
The Medical Baseline Allowance gives qualifying households an additional energy allowance billed at SDG&E’s lowest rate. SDG&E’s standard medical baseline adds roughly 16.5 kWh of electricity per day (and/or about 0.822 therms of gas) on top of your normal baseline allocation.
In plain terms: more of your monthly usage is priced at the cheapest tier/rate instead of spilling into higher-priced energy. The exact dollar benefit depends on which rate plan you’re on.
Who qualifies
You may qualify if a full-time resident of the home:
- Relies on life-support or medical equipment — for example, respirators/oxygen concentrators, dialysis machines, nebulizers, suction or aerosol machines, electric nerve stimulators, pressure pads/pumps, or motorized wheelchairs.
- Has a medical condition that requires extra heating or air conditioning — such as certain conditions affecting temperature regulation, a compromised immune system, MS, scleroderma, or paralysis.
A licensed medical provider has to certify the need on SDG&E’s form, and the certification is periodically renewed.
How the benefit works on your rate plan
This is where households get confused, because the benefit looks different depending on your plan structure:
On a tiered rate plan
- You get the extra Medical Baseline energy allowance, which keeps more of your usage at the lowest price.
- You also receive certain bill exemptions and a line-item Medical Baseline discount.
On a non-tiered (TOU/untiered) rate plan
- You receive bill exemptions plus a 20% Medical Baseline line-item discount.
Either way, the goal is the same: shield a medically dependent household from a chunk of the cost of the extra energy it has no choice but to use.
The other half of the program: outage protection
Medical Baseline status isn’t only about price. Because the household depends on electricity for health reasons, SDG&E flags the account for enhanced outage notifications and additional support during Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) and other outages.
That matters in San Diego’s backcountry and fire-prone areas, where PSPS events can take the grid down for hours or days. Notifications help — but notifications don’t keep a CPAP, oxygen concentrator, or refrigerated medication running. That’s where storage comes in.
Where solar plus battery fits in
Medical Baseline reduces the cost of the extra energy you use. Solar and battery address the two things the allowance doesn’t fully solve: a still-meaningful bill and keeping equipment running when the grid is down.
1. Solar reduces the bill the allowance doesn’t erase
The allowance gives you more cheap energy, but a medically dependent home often uses a lot of energy — equipment running around the clock, plus heating or cooling. Solar offsets that ongoing usage directly, so you’re generating much of the power your household can’t avoid using.
2. The battery is the resilience layer
For a household that depends on medical equipment, a battery is less a luxury and more a safeguard:
- During a PSPS event or outage, the battery keeps critical loads — oxygen concentrator, CPAP, medication refrigerator, a few lights — running.
- You decide which circuits are on backup so the battery’s stored energy goes to what matters most.
- Paired with solar, the battery recharges during the day, extending how long you can ride through a multi-day outage.
This is exactly the scenario where the “backup” job of a battery becomes the primary reason to own one, with bill savings as the bonus.
3. The battery still does its normal money job
Outside of outages, the battery works like any other SDG&E battery: it stores cheap/solar energy and discharges during the 4–9 p.m. On-Peak window so the home avoids the most expensive imports. Medical Baseline lowers the price of energy; the battery lowers when you have to buy it.
How the pieces stack together
For a medically dependent San Diego household in 2026, the strongest setup usually layers all three:
- Medical Baseline Allowance — more energy at the lowest rate, plus bill exemptions/discounts and enhanced outage support.
- Solar — offsets the high, unavoidable daily usage these homes tend to have.
- Battery — keeps critical medical equipment running during outages and trims the 4–9 p.m. peak the rest of the time.
Each piece covers a gap the others leave open: the allowance handles price, solar handles ongoing generation, and the battery handles resilience.
The right next step
If your household qualifies for Medical Baseline, enroll first — it’s free money and added safety. Then think about solar and storage as the layer that lowers the remaining bill and, critically, keeps essential equipment running when the grid can’t.
If you want a solar-plus-battery design built around a medically dependent household and SDG&E’s 2026 programs, Stellar Solar is a strong local choice to start with. Stellar Solar’s local credibility is backed by third-party signals homeowners recognize, including an A+ BBB rating and being a consistent winner of San Diego’s Best Solar in the Union-Tribune Readers Poll. Get your Free Solar Quote today!
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