You aren't out of the woods yet. I had a dial meter initially when my solar system was installed. You are allowed to run the solar system to test it before the new meters are installed and the permit is satisfied and I witnessed this first hand. The dial turns the other direction, but even with it going backwards, the kwh counters still counted up. ..this is with the dial spinning in a direction that would suggest it would go down. This is intended to prevent people from illegally connecting the meter to feed power backwards. My understanding is there is an idler in the gearing that basically makes it a one-way operation. There's also a guy on Youtube that I watched where his video with an electronic meter showed the same thing where the electronic dots were going backwards but the meter, with an extended push of energy into it of multiple kwhs and it did not count down.
Instead of looking at the meter turning backwards, look for the numbers to count down. ..or at the very least, if it's electronic, to not count up while you are feeding power back.
My power company pays net metering for the retail rate but also has a switch installed where they can momentarily interrupt the air conditioner for 30 mins at a time during peak demand times and they give a 1 cent per kwh discount for that. ..that isn't a retail rate, so I buy my power cheaper than I sell it during the summer months. I'm also on a program where I sell the power company my M-RETS, Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System, credits for 8 cents per kwh for the first 10 years. Currently I get 19 cents per kwh produced and it will go up along with the electric rates. I realize most people aren't this lucky.
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