Solar Savings

The main reason people install solar panels on their homes is to save money. Which begs the question: how does solar save you money? 

Solar saves you money by reducing or eliminating your monthly electricity bill. Solar accomplishes this in two main ways. 

First, when you use electricity produced by your solar panels at your home, you’re avoiding using electricity from the grid, which means you’re purchasing less from your utility. In other words, if it’s the middle of the day in the summer, and the sun is blaring and your AC is cranking, you’re able to use the electricity produced by your solar panels directly to run your AC, meaning you don’t have to buy that electricity from the grid to cool your home. 

Second, when your solar panels are producing more electricity than you can use at your home in that moment, you can send that extra solar generation to your utility in exchange for bill credits to use later. This is called net metering or net billing, depending upon where you live and how your utility has structured the program. 

In most places, each unit of energy you send your utility is credited at the same price you pay to buy a unit of energy from your utility, so it’s a 1-to-1 exchange. But some states are changing this, led by California, where solar is credited at less than 30% of what it costs to buy electricity from your utility. Not ideal. But that just means now is a perfect time to go solar so you can get grandfathered in to receive higher solar credits.

Regardless of whether you’re avoiding purchasing electricity from your utility, or banking bill credits by sending excess solar back to the grid, the savings can add up fast. If you spend $150 per month on electricity today, you’ll spend over $20,000 on electricity over the next ten years, and over $50,000 on electricity over the next 20 years. Solar can reduce or eliminate those costs!