For those that have solar panels on their home. When the electric bill comes in, does it gave you any indication how much the panels saved you?

Not really. On the days that you produced more than you consumed, those show up on the bill as credits. Those days that you use more than you produce shows up as kW consumed. My bill does not show how much was produced only if I am getting credits or using power from the grid. At least that is what I see on my power provider's electric bill. Unfortunately, given this weather, I am using more than producing consistently.

I do have an app that connects to my power converter so I do have an idea of how much I produce every day. I probably could put all of that in a daily spreadsheet and figure out savings but have not done that yet.

CapeAggie89 said:

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Not really. On the days that you produced more than you consumed, those show up on the bill as credits. Those days that you use more than you produce shows up as kW consumed. My bill does not show how much was produced only if I am getting credits or using power from the grid. At least that is what I see on my power provider's electric bill. Unfortunately, given this weather, I am using more than producing consistently.

I do have an app that connects to my power converter so I do have an idea of how much I produce every day. I probably could put all of that in a daily spreadsheet and figure out savings but have not done that yet.

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Couldn't you just pull the preceding 12 months before the panels and get a pretty good idea? I know it's not exactly apples to apples, but it should average out eventually.

AgLA06 said:

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CapeAggie89 said:

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Not really. On the days that you produced more than you consumed, those show up on the bill as credits. Those days that you use more than you produce shows up as kW consumed. My bill does not show how much was produced only if I am getting credits or using power from the grid. At least that is what I see on my power provider's electric bill. Unfortunately, given this weather, I am using more than producing consistently.

I do have an app that connects to my power converter so I do have an idea of how much I produce every day. I probably could put all of that in a daily spreadsheet and figure out savings but have not done that yet.

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Couldn't you just pull the preceding 12 months before the panels and get a pretty good idea? I know it's not exactly apples to apples, but it should average out eventually.

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Agree, but I had other priorities and we put the panels in 3 years ago. I don't have access to those records anymore. Not to hard to put all the data into a spreadsheet.

TexasAggie73 said:

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For those that have solar panels on their home. When the electric bill comes in, does it gave you any indication how much the panels saved you?

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For large portions of the power, the power company won't even be aware of its existence. You'll produce it and consume it on site.

My mom just had solar panels and batteries installed at her house. It is a 3000sf house built in the 80's with a pool. In July, she had 21 days where she used less than 4 kWh of power. The remaining days, she used an average of 12 kWh. Her bill was something like $40, and this is with absolutely no credit for excess power that she exported after her batteries were charged. August has been similar so far, which is impressive given the string of hot days we've had.

We would expect that in the winter and especially in the spring, she will produce much more than she consumes and she'll be able to accumulate some credits to offset what little summer usage she has and the fixed connection fees.

In July of last year, she used between 60 and 85 kWh of power a day.

Batteries are expensive but they are more worth it when you factor in that on the days that you use energy from the grid, you'll pay something like $0.15-0.20/kWh because of the fixed costs, but for most retain electric provider plans, you'll only get an average of $0.02-0.03/kWh. There are other options out there that pay more for your power (sometimes its even equal), but they have lots of other restrictions and they seem to be dying out. Also, she gets a battery backup that keeps her solar functioning during a daytime blackout and keeps the lights on at night in most cases.

The payback on it is going to be long term, but the peace of mind during blackouts, and the fact that her energy costs are much closer to fixed made it worth it to her.

Thanks for the info. I agree it is a individual choice and it really helps with the tax credits. My wife and I are in our early 70's and have a whole home generator so I don't see an advantage for us.

My main issue I guess is that my son and now his ex wife signed up for
Panels before their marriage tanked and they were install on the home she owned before marriage and refuses to turn them on She wants the company to remove them and cancel the note which is in her name. She also got a new roof out of the deal. I think she is cutting off her nose in spite.

I have an Emporia Energy monitor in my electric panel. I don't have solar, but I expect you could use one of these monitors to understand your true net consumption.

TexasAggie73 said:

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Thanks for the info. I agree it is a individual choice and it really helps with the tax credits. My wife and I are in our early 70's and have a whole home generator so I don't see an advantage for us.

My main issue I guess is that my son and now his ex wife signed up for
Panels before their marriage tanked and they were install on the home she owned before marriage and refuses to turn them on She wants the company to remove them and cancel the note which is in her name. She also got a new roof out of the deal. I think she is cutting off her nose in spite.

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It would depend on the system, but there should be a way to see how much power they're generating. Converting that into a cash value would just require them to negotiate a reasonable rate...

It seems to me that if she owns the home, and the loan is in her name, the company that did the install and the company that holds the note is going to tell her to pound sand. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like they're just going to have to come to some kind of agreement on a fair market value of the system to count against the debt.

The contract to install them should have an estimate of how much power they will generate over the year and how much power the home consumes. The quote usually has an estimation of the dollar value of the energy that the system is expected to generate. The amount of power that it will generate will be reasonably accurate. It comes out of a program that factors in the orientation of the panels and the sun over time, and generally weather as well. As you would guess, the economic benefit is a little more optimistic.

I would start with some percentage of the economic value that the quote says the system would provide over its lifetime and they can argue over what that percentage is. Once they are financially separated, she can decide if she wants to pay someone to take the panels off and that bad decision will no longer be your son's problem.

Report her to the IRS for tax fraud for taking a credit for solar installation that was not maintained!

ETA: if she has less than 5 years left on the note then she's being dumb for removing them. That's likely the breakeven point on economic benefit.

In the first 12 months of Solar I paid $74 for power total. Long hot days like this summer is more but I guess it saves me $300 a month during this heat wave.