We never installed solar, and in the meantime have learned that we will have to switch from oil heat to another source: propane, or electric – which brings me back to solar.
But it’s so complicated, with so many variables, that I am looking to hire a consultant to walk us through this, and supervise the project. Does anyone know of such a person?
Absolutely. The bills can be puzzling. It does take some research to figure this stuff out. In our case, even if we send extra into the grid that we don’t use, it is OK. 
In our case, it’s more figuring our which fuel to convert our house to, and THEN figuring out if the solar piece makes sense.
The easiest cost comparison would be to convert everything into BTU/$ for ongoing costs. There will also be a one time fixed cost covering everything like removal of the oil tank (yikes) and addition of propane tank and furnace conversion or, if going electric, addition of ductless minisplits/heat pump for heating and cooling. I assume your kitchen appliances are already electric, so those would be out of the calculation.
My solar generation primarily occurs in off-peak hours, although a good chunk is also on-peak (west angled roof placement). My summer rates are $0.45 for off peak and $0.55 for on peak. If I had the standard solar plan, my rates would instead be $0.47 for off peak and $0.80 for on peak.
These are among the highest electric rates in the United States, perhaps the highest. Contributing factors for the high rates include losing money on an increasingly large portion of customers switching to solar (NEM 3.0 addresses this), emphasis on renewables and clean energy, less electric usage due to moderate climate, and wildfire mitigation/expenses.
Higher rates can benefit solar customers who use more than they consume since higher rates means higher solar credits. However, my net for the full year is excess generation, which pays the same low wholesale rate regardless of usage period, so the different plans have little difference in net return… Instead I prefer the plan with $0.55 summer peak over $0.80 summer peak in case there is a problem with my solar panels or my summer usage increases beyond previous years.
My guess is that these rates are the highest by far. Your rates are at least 4x of the rates in NJ, probably not the cheapest rates in the country.
Your solar credits are just offsetting the artificially high rates. How does that benefit you, since you’re only compensated for your excess generation at the low wholesale rate (same here in NJ).
I live in CT. Our rates with the recent increase…highest in the continental U.S.
Our panels are installed, and will be connected this week. Hopefully the power company will be here quickly after that to deal with whatever it is they need to do.
Congrats. In our case, the power company guy took a look at the meter, slapped an extra sticker on it and said it was good to go.
That’s all it takes…but they have to show up
Read an article in the Boston Globe a few months ago. Folks in our area are waiting months for the electric company to show up and give to OK to connect to their grid. Meanwhile, they are missing out on savings and the electric company continues to collect.
Granted, there is little incentive for the electric company to do this in a timely fashion—just loses them money once you’re generating your own power.
In North America, solar usually generates far more energy in the summer than winter, so many solar customers get credits for excess energy generation in the summer. Under NEM 2.0 (California), this month-to-month summer excess energy credit is given at the high retail summer electric rates. If I generate excess energy in summer on-peak under the standard solar plan, I get solar credits are at the high $0.80/kWh or $0.55/kWh rate. So a user gets a larger credit balance to offset winter with relatively little solar balance, with the higher $0.80/kWh than the lower $0.55/kWh rate.
The wholesale excess credit at $0.06/kWh is given once per year at a “true-up” date. If after both summer and winter, you still have excess credits, they reset your excess generation credit balance to 0 at true-up, and payout at the excess at the low wholesale $0.06/kWh rate.
Note that summer rates are consistently higher than winter rates in my area, due to the increased electric demand from A/C. I am assuming that the summer rate increase does not have a corresponding winter rate increase, which is the case for the standard solar plan with the $0.80/kWh rate.
Power companies often lose money on solar customers with the structure outlined above, so much of what I wrote above changes under NEM 3.0, which begins in April 2023, if I remember correctly. Solar customers who purchased under NEM 2.0 are grandfathered in to the NEM 2.0 structure for 20 years.
That’s our concern!
Our city is big on converting over time from coal-powered plants to solar (and they have the battery challenge at large scale, which concerns me). There are still folks doing home-based solar installation, but they are pondering it more based on the planned utility transitions.