For those of you on net metering programs, you have an annual true-up date. In my case, the true-up date is fixed based on the date of solar installation, but I have heard others say that their utility gives some allowances to move it (either one-time-only, or with some limited frequency)…
For me, my true-up date is mid-May. My preference is to have it closer to March, but I could do worse than my current mid-May true-up date.
March would be the start of significant solar production, and would allow me to accumulate my solar “acorns” in the spring/summer, and manage depletion through the wintertime when the solar production is low, and energy is relatively high due to people staying home more because of the cold weather.
This strategy wouldn’t work if my true-up was in the beginning of Fall when solar production goes down, and instead of building up my solar “acorns” and managing “the burn”… I would basically be going into “energy debt” and need to forecast the spring/summer months of over production to get me out of that debt…
Mid-May means that I need to go into slight “energy debt” by March, and then count on my early Spring production to get me across the finish line close to a net zero on my True-Up day.
How do you all manage your net metering and annual true-up? Or do you even manage and think about it?
My true-up period is roughly aligned with the calendar year, but my solar was never sufficient to cover all my usage, and the gap grew after I added two EVs to the mix. So my target is simply to try to reduce the previous year’s true-up.
Yeah… I have a small system…but my consumption is also low, so I have to manage my burn in order to get the most out of my system…
It’s already mid-February, and I should be in “energy debt” at this point, but I have a surplus… It’s going to be difficult for me to burn all my excess production by my mid-May true-up…
My problem was magnified by the fact that my AC broke last summer and we sweated it out…but also ended up not using as much summer electricity… I’ll get that fixed before this summer, so my usage should go up this summer…
Here is a 1 month summary of my usage vs. solar production. Should the last number on the lower right be 73% and not 22%. Was wondering how sense determines % powered by solar
Powered by Solar is (Solar Production - To Grid) / Total Usage. That’s the % of your home’s usage that your solar production actually covered. The rest was shipped off to the grid for some kind of credit. If you have net metering and get 1:1 credit, then this number really doesn’t matter as much.
@Mars, the mobile app has more complete data from a solar perspective.
The mobile app has both:
Powered By Solar - What percentage of your household electrical usage is coming DIRECTLY off the panels. This usage/consumption is “invisible” from the grid. So if this number is 33%, that means that a third of your consumption is coming directly off your panels.
Net Production - This is the net difference between how much total solar production your panels created (some of which powered your home directly, some of which was sent to the grid), and your total consumption… From a net metering perspective, this will tell you the net energy “accounting”… So 100% would mean that you covered all of your usage and are at a breakeven with the utility company…anything above 100% would be credits to your account, and anything below 100% would mean that you are either being charged or burning credits…
I would love to see the “Net Production” metric added to the web interface… But it doesn’t bother me that it’s not included, since it is on the mobile app (which I use more often anyway)…
In December 2018 we added a 7.7kW array to the existing 6kW. Thru 2019 the arrays overproduced, but I won’t know for sure by how much until our utility end-of-year hits in May. I don’t need to manage that though, as PPL will send a check if I have a positive balance. Right now I’m guessing I’ll come out with 1000-1500 kWh excess. That tells me I can cool the house a bit more agressively if we want to next summer.
