If you run your house on solar, where you live, do you still have to pay the electric company?
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at
2:47 pm
I have heard a few horror stories of how some people made their houses solar and then got told by the electric companies that they owed an electric bill too, when they did not use any electric!
Is this because the electric companies need to stay in business at this time in history for the good of the majority of people who cannot afford the initial expense of solar?
Filed under: Wind Power
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It depends.
If you are completely off-grid, that is, if your house is no longer connected to the electric power lines that run to the electric company, then you will not own them anything. You aren’t a customer of theirs at all, so you owe them nothing. But if your panels break or your batteries go dead and you don’t have any power, you will have no way to use the electric company as a back-up source. You are completely on your own as far as your electricity goes.
If you stay connected to the power grid, but don’t use any electricity, you will probably need to pay the electric company some kind of metering fee, or maintenance fee. If you look at your bill each month, you’ll see that you probably pay a fixed customer charge, as well as energy costs. That fixed customer charge covers the cost of maintaining liines to your home, maintaining your meter, and so on. It’s essentially a charge to have the electricity AVAILABLE, even if you don’t use it.
not if u have enough to supply your needs and if u produce more pg&e has to buy it from u
I think , and consult a lawyer for absolute facts . You can use solar for all of your needs. If you produce excess power they must purchase it from you. Conversely , You will have days you must use their power. The only exception is if you are not on the grid and have a generator.
I have solar panels as well as mains electricity. I’m thinking of stopping the solar panels because they aren’t very efficient. We have over 320 days of sunshine a year, but still it’s not as efficient as it should be.
whether you are charged for electricity depends on how much your solar system generates vs. how much you need. if demand exceeds solar panel supply, you will draw from the power company grid for the extra amount you need. People need to learn how to read their electric bill. Also, be informed going into solar panels whether there are rebates for installing the equipment (approved equipment installed by a LICENSED contractor – this is not a project for the do-it-yourselfer unless you really know what you’re doing and are willing to chase down the rebate dollars – they will not arrive unsolicited in your mailbox).
The electric companies are far from being seriously threatened by smale-scale solar energy – they’re doing just fine and welcome solar energy because they sometimes have trouble meeting growing demand. Of course they need to stay in business and hopefully their business model takes into account changes in technology and use.
In my area, the power company will actually pay people with solar panels for energy. Example: a hot summer day, a homeowner with solar panels is doing great from all of the sunlight, but the power company is struggling to meet demands for energy because of all the air conditioners running. On days like that, a homeowner would actually get paid for either their excess energy or just for not using the power company’s energy. So on days in the winter where there is no sun, buying some of the power company’s energy will make it even.
Go to your power company’s web site to see what programs they offer for solar panel users. There’s no way the power company can charge you for energy you did not buy, but an annual maintenance fee might be your only problem.
if you r not connected you don’t owe them…if you are you do…very simple……..only thing is they charge a mininum…my sister has a meter on her barn…she uses 5 to 10 dollars a month they have a 20 dollar min…to keep her hooked up.
My system is tied into the electric company. I did this because I wasn’t buying a system big enought to zero out my bill and I didn’t want the added expense of the storage system. When I’m generating more electricity than I’m using my meter runs backwards, at night when the sun isn’t our my meter runs forward. If in a month I generate more than I use I’ll see a credit on my bill, eventually it will get used.
If I add to the system later and I generate more than I use in a year I’ll still have to pay certain fees that all household have to pay, it looks like that will be less than $12 per month.
Not all utilities allow you to run the meter backwards. The meter will measure how much electricity is used by the house, so it they are generating all that they need and have a system to store it for when their isn’t enough light they shouldn’t have much of a bill. However, if they don’t have storage system they will be using electricity from the grid anytime they use more than they generate and when the sun isn’t out.
Our system, like the vast majority in this country, has no batteries, and is tied to the grid.
Laws vary from state to state as to how the money is worked out, and whether you can ever actually owe zero on your electric bill.
Where we are in California, there is a minimum usage fee of 1 kWh a day. In other words, to be connected to the grid, the power company will bill us for 1 kWh a day, whether we use it or not – and in fact, even if we generate a huge excess of electricity. But the meter turns backwards (usually) during the day, and runs forward at night. At the end of a year, the power company settles up for the annual usage. If we used more electricity than we generated, we write them a check. If we generated more than we used, they say thank you for the donation, and reset the counter to zero. Actually, I’m exaggerating. They don’t say thank you. So it will cost us a minimum of about $70 this year in electricity – more, if we use more than we make.
Our system details on the page below.