Saving money on Solar

It is with mixed feelings that Kevin and I open our Pacific Gas + Electric bill that includes data on how much energy our house created and house much energy we used for each month of the past year. PG+E calls this the “True-up” statement.  While we are proud that our house (and its inhabitants) have been quite energy efficient, and happy that our 4kw PV solar panels have been productive, our bill shows that we gave PG+E $633.49 worth of energy this year.  Since our home ties to the PG+E grid, basically we sell back energy on sunny days, and buy back on gray days, so we do not need a battery or back-up system for the gray days. While we sized our solar system based on assumed needs and attempted to target zero energy, our house (with it’s high-performance insulation, radiant heating, sliding sunshades, high windows, etc) has ended up using less energy than expected. About $633 less.

While currently PG+E doesn’t pay owners for this creation of energy, apparently, they are very close to changing this policy. Kevin and I are very excited about this, because that can mean a decent budget for champagne next year. (or, I guess, if I was wearing my responsible hat, it means we actually have money for some of our bills).

Until then, we will just feel good about creating more energy than we need. (and a note to PG+E: Can you please give that energy we gave to you and give it to an underpriveledged family rather than just keeping it for yourselves?)

The home depicted in these photos is not for sale by MKS.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 5:31 pm and is filed under blog and tagged with architecture, energy efficiency, green prefab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.