How Do You Use Your Power?

Ever thought about when and how much electricity you use. Do you use more in the summer or the winter? How about during the day or at night? For most of us our usage all depends on our lifestyles, preferences and climate.

You may also be wondering: “How does my usage impact going solar? Will I have electricity when I need it?”

Not to worry you will always have electricity due to the reliability of net metering. But first let’s first talk about how our daily usage relates to your solar production.

Daily Usage

Morning - we make breakfast, watch some TV, have a shower. All of those things increase your electricity usage compared to when you're sleeping.  

Afternoon - you are likely to spend at least a portion of that day out of the house.  Kids might be gone to school, you might have gone to work... no need to use too much electricity then. Except maybe if you work from home. 

Evening - everyone is now home, you are cooking dinner, playing video games, watching tv, cleaning up, doing chores. Often we will change the temperature in our house to be more comfortable. This is typically the highest usage point of our days.

Nighttime - once everyone is in bed energy consumption will go down again because no one has a need for it.

So how does that energy usage profile compare to daily production from solar panels?

As you probably guessed, solar panels produce most of their energy in the middle of the day when the sun is the highest. However you don’t really need as much electricity in the middle of the day. But most people usually don’t have a battery storage solution to hold that power collected for when you need it most. This is where the net metering concept comes in.

Daily Net Metering 

Your solar panels will convert the sun's rays into electricity throughout the day. The first priority of that electricity will be to supply your house with the electricity it is demanding at that moment in time. Once it has filled your usage needs then the excess will go back into the grid and you will get credits. During other times in the day where you use more electricity than your solar panels are producing the house will draw from the grid to supply you with the remaining power you need.

Every day your house will always have power. But certain times of the day you will use the solar power and feed the rest into the grid (getting credits) while other times of the day you will use the grid power (using those credits you earned).

Seasonal Usage

Now let’s consider the seasons

Seasonal usage typically varies depending on how much the weather can change in your area. If you're living somewhere like PEI you will have very cold winters and pretty warm summers. This means you will likely need to use a lot of electricity to keep a nice comfortable temperature in your house. On the other side of the country in places like Vancouver they don’t have to deal with such variable temperatures and so their electric bills might not change as much from season to season.

Seasonality of Solar production

Your solar panels will produce the most amount of electricity during the summer months. In the summer the sun is out for much longer and it stays high in the sky right over head always beating down on those panels. This is the best time to produce electricity but in the winter months electricity still is produced. Most solar estimates will take into account that variable solar production in their overall estimates for you.

Seasonal Net Metering

Every day energy generation from solar panels will add up. Whatever you do not consume one day will add to your whole credit bank. This is good because during the summer your panels will overproduce a lot! During the winter you will want those credits from the summer to use as the sun isn’t beating down on those panels half as much.

In Charlottetown, PEI January on average has 109 hours of sunlight while in July they get 254 hours of sunlight.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia January on average has 109 hours of sunlight while in July they get 235 hours of sunlight.

Overall you will ideally produce enough extra electricity in the summer to offset your winter electric bills and have a consistently low cost all year round. Interested in learning more about the daily and annual consumption and savings you could see? We encourage you to get a free solar assessment done on your house here