First Year of Solar Production

Our Solar Panel installation went live on December 15, 2015. We have a 9.88 Kw system.which is supposed to offset our power usage by 85%.  Our electric company will only allow up to a 10Kw system and I've heard that other electric companies will only allow up to a certain percentage of usage when installing solar panels.

The Solar City software reads our solar production as well as our consumption.  The consumption measurement isn't available to everyone, but I find it an invaluable resource to learn what uses the most power and to find ways to lower my power consumption.

 December 2015 - Winter time is a lower production month in regards to solar production. The sun hours are usually less than or equal to 9 hours a day.

I learned that our dishwasher consumes more power than our clothes dryer, because we had it set for a heated dry. I turned that option off and it helped reduce power consumption.








January 2016 - Our first full production month.  We had a couple of snow storms. The thick cloud cover still produces a little solar production seen on the 7th, but the snow covering the solar panels pretty much stops production as seen on the 8th.

I have become obsessed with turning off every unneeded light. My kids think I've gone crazy.  I have also become obsessed with checking my power usage throughout the day. Which has contributed to my husband thinking I've gone crazy too. But knowledge is power! It's the power to change or stay the same, whichever is better.