You will still receive an electric bill after you go solar. But once you’ve gone solar, you may see that bill reduce in cost. To potentially reduce your bill, you’ll need to understand how your electric company bills you for power. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll want to have a plan for managing your power usage. Lastly, you may want to consider home batteries if you are billed for electricity using Time-of-Use billing.
How grid-tied solar affects your electric bill
A grid-tied solar system produces electricity during the day that provides power to the home and to the grid. But once the sun starts going down, the house has to draw power from the grid. Homeowners served by utility companies that bill using Time-of-Use billing face a quandary. The power company often charges its peak rates in the evening. This means that the solar owner is paying the company’s highest rates because that’s when they are drawing power. But the company will charge off-peak rates during the day. Due to that, the company will compensate the solar owner at those lower off-peak rates for the power their system produces.
How flat rate billing affects your utility bill
If you are billed at a flat rate, you pay the same rate for every kilowatt-hour of power you use regardless of how much power you use or when you use that power. With a flat-rate scheme, you can maximize your electricity savings by limiting the amount of power you use.
How tiered-rate billing affects your utility bill
If you are served by tiered rates, then you get a baseline allowance of electricity every month that is billed at the company’s lowest billing tier. If you use more than the baseline allowance, you are billed at a higher rate for every kilowatt-hour you use above that baseline allowance.
Time-of-Use rates can limit your savings
Time-of-Use (ToU) rates can significantly limit your savings from solar if you use a lot of power during the evening hours. Unfortunately, that is exactly when many people use power cooking dinner, doing laundry, and other things after they get home from work. The way to reduce the impact of high evening ToU rates is to shift as much power usage as you can to off-peak hours.
Home batteries can help you save even with Time-of-Use billing
Home batteries make a lot of sense if you’re billed for power using Time-of-Use billing. Home batteries can power your home during peak rate hours so that you don’t have to draw expensive energy from the grid. Some states including California and Nevada even offer incentives for installing home batteries.
Freedom Forever can help you cut your electric bill down to size
If you’re ready to cut your electric bill down to size, Freedom Forever can help! We are experts in designing and building solar systems that can fit your energy needs now and in the future. Want to build a system with batteries? Freedom has you covered! Our independent authorized dealers are experts in getting the most from solar power in your local community. Best of all you can go solar with confidence thanks to our 25-year production guarantee. While other companies may only offer warranties for parts of your solar system. Freedom does more by guaranteeing the amount of power your system will produce for a full 25 years.