Indonesia has an enormous solar energy potential equivalent to 207.8 Gigawatt (GW) of power generation because of its equatorial location. Nevertheless, solar energy development in Indonesia is still considerably low, with no more than 3% of household consumers using solar energy (estimated 2018). Building a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaics (PV) system offers an excellent opportunity to boost solar energy development. However, it requires a considerable investment that the government cannot currently provide. One feasible solution is through the distributed PV system adoption, such as the household rooftop PV. Net metering and net billing have been implemented as policy instruments to increase the household rooftop PV adoption, but their effectiveness was never assessed. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effectiveness of the two policy instruments by analyzing and understanding the dynamic complexity of the household rooftop PV adoption using system dynamics approach incorporated with policy analysis framework. The findings suggest that the net metering is more effective than the net billing in boosting the household rooftop PV adoption. The study also emphasizes the importance of taking a systems perspective to acquire a sufficient understanding of the dynamic complexity of solar energy development for a better evaluation of energy policy. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.