Earlier this year we had our solar panels installed but, thanks to confusion, we only recently began to feed energy back in to the grid.
We received our first bill today with a credit and, wow, the investment looks to have really paid off. At first I was just impressed that the bill had dropped from $380 to $145 (comparable usage) but then I realised they had broken down usage in to pre and post feed in.
For the time we were feeding back in to the grid our bill was $175, usage and supply. In that same time we were credited with $155. Wow. If our bill was for only these two months it would have been for the princely sum of $20. The system will pay for itself in a few years if we can keep this up.
I did notice today that the inverter was in an error state, somehow the fuse in our main fuse box had been tripped so there’ll be a few days where we weren’t contributing. I’ve set myself a reminder to check it each week and will try and get in to the habit of checking it each time I leave the garage. Our system is also set up so we can add another four panels when have the funds. If we did this it looks like we’d cover all of our electricity costs.
With just the substantial service fees to pay. But yes, solar panels are the way to go to minimise your electric bill. If you generate enough, the extra should come off the service fees too.
We have had our panels for a whole billing-cycle now, and we only got a $25 bill. According to our smart meter, we are generating about 20 percent more than we use. Our bill, oddly, doesn’t show the same figures. Having said that, they had to send us out three, and they all had different figures. I suspect the power companies’ billing systems are struggling to adapt to people generating some of the electricity.