How the seasons will effect your electric bills

As the seasons change, so to does your electricity bill…

We hope that you always are enjoying every minute of the sun! Unfortunately the sun isn’t around as much as we would like it to be. It seems to take a break in the winter and not show up as often. Days get shorter, nights get colder, clouds seem to always linger longer in the winter.

This means that if you have solar your production is going to be lower in the winter than in the summer.

We do plan for that and it’s why the net metering model you signed up for works so well over the year. During the summer months you end up over-producing and earning credits to be used at a later date. During the winter months you end up producing less than needed which causes you to need more electricity from your utility provider. During those times the electricity provider users the credits you earned during the summer.

What will your electricity bill look like yearly after solar?

Spring/Fall

Weather depending, you will likely break even on your usage to energy generation or in good years there will be extra generation and you will accumulate some credits! These months you are likely only paying the service fee.

Summer

Summer is like striking gold! The # of sunlight hours are almost double what they are in the early spring and fall. This means you will over produce and be generating credits you accumulate to use for later. You will likely only be paying the service charge during these months (depending on your total offset expected…a 50% offset is likely not going to cover the total usage in the summer)

Winter

Those dark and dreary winter months are a real bummer. Short days and not too much sun. During these months your solar production will drop quite substantially and it does not typically cover all your needs for the month. However all those credits you accumulated over the summer are now applied to the winter bills and if you produced enough credits in the summer you will only have to pay your service fee!

When you get your solar panels installed when will you see the benefits?

Winter installation

Getting your solar panels installed in winter typically means you see a bit of cost savings on your electricity bills but not too much. During the day your panels will still be producing electricity for you but it likely will not be enough to cover all of your needs over the course of the entire month. So in these first couple months you will likely be paying your service fee + a portion of the usage you would have expected to pay without solar.

Then in the spring your bills will likely be somewhat close to just your service charge only (depending on your expected offset). If you have 100% offset then you would likely expect your bill to be simply the service charge whereas if you have 60% offset your bill will be likely your service charge + 60% of what you typically would expect to pay for usage.

During the summer you will likely be producing enough to cover your entire usage + it is likely you will over produce and send that extra electricity back to your electricity provider. This extra electricity will be counted for as credits for you to use at a future date!

The next winter when your panels are not producing as much electricity because of the shorter days you will have to draw more electricity from the grid again. BUT fortunately this time you will have a bunch of accumulated credits from the summer and potentially spring/fall that the electricity provider will automatically apply to your winter bill.

Ideally the next winter your electricity usage is covered mostly if not entirely by the credits accumulated in the summer.

Spring Installation

Spring is our most favourite time to install! Our crews are not too hot and they are excited to not be freezing their butts off! And for you it is a great time to start generating your own power too. Typically your electricity bills after installation in the spring are close to just the service fee if not a little higher (depending on weather and your expected offset). The better the weather the more likely it is that you will be generating credits to accumulate at times where you are not producing as much.

Through the summer you will continue to maximize your savings and likely be accumulating credits each and every month to use for the winter.

The falls bills will likely be similar to your spring all depending on the weather.

During the winter you can expect to save a portion of your electricity costs through winter solar generation but a lot of your savings during the winter will come from the accumulated credits you go through the spring-summer-fall seasons. Ideally (depending on your offset) the savings will cover most of your winter usage costs.

Summer Installation

Getting your solar panels installed in the summer means you will see amazing cost savings on your first electricity bill. Typically in the summer you will over produce and send the extra electricity back into the grid and accumulate credits. Depending on what month you get installed will depend on just how many credits you will accumulate. These will become useful as the winter months hit! Many of our clients typically only have to pay the service charge during the summer as their offset is fairly high.

Through the fall it is likely you will see your production and usage evening out and ideally you will only be paying somewhere close to your service fees.

In the winter all of those summer credits you accumulated will now pay off! Your electricity provider will automatically use those credits you accumulated to lower your electricity bill. With any luck you accumulated enough in the summer to cover all of your winter costs aside from your service fee. Again it will all depend on how many months of summer generation you had and how sunny the fall was.

Fall Installation

If you get your solar panels installed in the fall your energy production in the first few months is likely going to cover most of your electricity usage and so your bills will be close to simply the service fee (always dependent upon your offset). You may accumulate some additional credits depending on how sunny it is over the fall months you have had your installation installed.

Through the winter you will get a small amount of savings on your electricity bill but not too much. As we mentioned before the days are shorter and so there’s less sunlight available to generate all the electricity you will require over the winter months. You may get some additional savings from any credits accumulated during the fall but likely not too many.

Once you get back to the spring and summer you are rocking again! At that time you can expect your bills to be very low if not just the service fee and you will be accumulating credits the whole way along getting you ready to truly see the amazing savings through the next winter!

Important to remember

We do our best to optimize the system over the entire year! Our goal is to install an optimized number of panels based on your available area, expected usage and forecasted sun exposure that allow you to initially save more than the monthly cost of the panels in a financing agreement.

Our goal is to save you more over the first year than you would spend on the panels!