Going for Solar: Your First Electric Bill (Step 12)

I cannot believe how excited I was about getting an electric bill.  I was eagerly anticipating our first electric bill after we turned on our Solar Awning.  Yeah, I’m probably a little crazy, but I was excited to see how low our net-usage was, that is, how little electricity we used from the grid. Here is how we did for December:

Because our electric bill doesn’t match with the calendar months, for the remainder of this post, when I refer to December, I mean the period from November 20 to December 21 that corresponds to our first full month’s electric bill with solar.

Our electricity net-usage for 2010

Our electric bill for December was only $38.73 with a net-usage of 214 kWh.  By reading our solar meter, we determined that we produced 245 kWh from our solar awning for a total consumption of 459 kWh.  The total usage  is down by 100 kWh (18%) from our consumption last December of 559 kWh, so we can see our efficiency practices paying off as well as the impact of the solar awning.

Given that in December our solar awning was producing over half of our electricity, I was very excited to see this bill! 

I now eagerly anticipate the bill each month.  I can’t wait to see what the longer days of spring and summer do to our solar production.  I’m hoping that for some months we will be net producers of electricity. 

Happy Greening!
Jon

Going for Solar Series

To learn more about residential solar installations, check out our series Going for Solar, which details every step from dreaming about installing solar, through picking a contractor and the steps in construction.  We provide information and advice for every step of the way, as well as different approaches such as paying for it yourself versus leasing a system.  Don’t miss the steps on how much money we saved during our first year of usage!