We got our first < $5 electricity bill last month since we installed solar panels.
@pratik Jealous. My plan is to go off-grid for electricity in the next 10 years. Seems absolutely viable now.
@yorrike just have to take the leap and not just use economic viability as a reason in spite of what I just posted.
@paulcraig901 I can but it depends greatly on the system size, amount of sunlight your home gets, local regulations, etc. So my estimate may vary greatly from yours. I wrote about it here
@pratik Nice! We got a couple of similar bills last year right around this time (there is a minimum grid connection fee where we live, so we'll never actually have a $0 bill, but it's good to know we're generating more than we're using!). I actually expect we're about to have one as I just looked and we generated more this past month than we have at any point since we got the panels installed!
@DrOct Cool. We have a minimum grid connection fee as well but apparently, our credits can be used to pay for that as well if we produce more.
@pratik Nice! Unfortunately, our power company doesn't give us that option, but of course we can carry forward our credits, so they'll get used one way or the other. (I don't really mind the grid connection fee, they are providing the infrastructure so I don't mind paying for that aspect of things).
@DrOct Yup. I get that justification too. The way they get us to pay to maintain it is by ensuring we do not install a system that produces more than average consumption over the past few years.
@pratik We have similar rules in Virginia, we just also have to pay the fee for any given month we generate more than we use anyway. The main power company here, Dominion, just barely tolerates the whole idea of customers with rooftop solar, and has enough influence over the legislature that improvements to the laws are very slow to come.