We had a SunPower solar system installed on our house. It consists of 20, 400W panels, 14 on the East roof and 6 on the South. The total system generating capacity is 8kW. Since the panels are on different roof angles, it is unlikely to get that 8kW since they will reach peak output at different times.
We still have net metering here so we did not install a battery system yet. Net metering allows us to sell our excess power back to the energy company and accumulate a positive balance with the utility. During the times of year with higher solar generation than consumption we build up a credit which can be used during the summer months to pay for the usage that exceeds our generating. Basically, you somewhat use the grid as a enormous long-term battery. I believe as more solar powers the grid, these net meting plans will go away so I wanted to get in while they were still available. The 30% tax credit was also a huge incentive. Our system went online in April, the same month the utility raised the rates over 6% making the value prop that much stronger.
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| Utility power meter for solar showing energy sold back to the grid (arrow left) |
Here is what the dashboard shows for a full day.
The grey shows the amount of energy the solar generated and the house used. The green shows the net power we sold back to the grid. The black shows the amount beyond what we generated in solar that we had to buy from the grid. April 12 was a cloudy day and April 13 was sunny. Even on that cloudy day we generated most of what we used.
