Net Environmental Return – Reduce your environmental impact. Both your carbon emissions and water usage are significantly reduced when you switch to solar.

Reduce Electricity Bills
You can start saving on your electric bill from day one. Avoid utility rate hikes and fees for decades to come.

Energy Independence
Be prepared with a home battery backup system. Free yourself from utility policy changes and protect your home when the grid goes down.

Increase Home’s Value
Be prepared with a home battery backup system. Free yourself from utility policy changes and protect your home when the grid goes down.

Net Energy Metering (NEM) – NEM is a policy that allows you to generate and receive energy to and from the grid through your electrical meter. Traditional utility consumers pull energy from the main electrical grid, use the energy in their home, while the meter counts how much is used. With PV solar, you can push your excess energy into the grid during the day and pull it during the night to use for lights, electronics, air conditioning/heating or anything else you may need that requires electricity.

Grid Connection – After you go solar, you will still be connected to the utility’s grid. This is so you can take advantage of NEM to maximize the value of your system. Essentially the grid functions as a bank storing your energy from your solar panels until you are ready to use it. With a battery backup system and secure power supply, you can use the energy from your system when the grid goes down.

Energy Credits – When you don’t use all the energy your system produces during a day, that energy will “roll” over to the next day and so forth. This happens day after day, month after month, but not year after year. This allows you to use all the energy you produce with your solar system. If you have higher usage months (AC, guests, holidays, etc) you draw from the extra energy credits you earned earlier in the year.

Yearly Settlement – Once a year you “square up” with your utility. It’s where you settle the balance on your energy credit over the past year. Consuming more than you produce you pay the utility for the excess energy you pulled from the grid. Producing more energy than you consume, the utility will pay you for the excess energy at a sub-retail rate.

1. Your photovoltaic (PV) Solar Panels convert sunlight to DC electricity.
2. Your Inverter converts DC (Direct Current) electricity to AC (alternating current).
3. Generated PV electricity converted to AC is used to power your home.
4. Excess electricity is sent to the grid for a credit, or stored in a battery if you choose to install one in your home.

What is a Kilowatt-Hour?

Here are the most important equipment components to the standard solar panel system for your home.

Solar Panels – Solar panels are modular components, generally rectangular in shape – approximately 3 ft by 5ft. The panels contain silicon cells that when exposed to sunlight, create a flow of direct current (DC) electricity. Panels will vary in size, electrical output (measured in Watts), efficiency, and even color. Most solar panels today have either a black or silver metallic frame. The cells will usually appear a dark blue or black in the light. Panels can be mounted to a home or building’s roof structure, or installed on a ground-mount racking structure.

Note: When thinking about where to strategically place solar panels for a home, it’s important to consider factors that will affect the system’s energy production (measured in kWh). Shade from trees, should be taken into consideration. In the Northern Hemisphere, facing south generally the best orientation for maximum output.

Inverters

The inverter is a device that converts (or if we’re being techincal inverts) direct current electricity produced by the PV solar array(s) into distributed alternating current, (AC electricity). There are several different types of inverters a solar installation might employ. String inverters are the simplest, most mature inverter technology. This is where the DC from groups of solar panels linked in series are fed into the inverter. The inverter puts out AC electricity which is then fed to the home’s electrical system. Micro-inverters are small, modular inverters that are installed behind each solar panel in an array (1:1) and effectively contain the AC energy production of each panel so that the reduced production of one panel does not affect the output of the entire solar array.

Racking System
A racking system is how your solar panels are be mounted to your home’s roof or ground mount system (popular for commercial installations). While some racking systems may vary in their appearance or modularity, they exhibit similarities in their form and function. It’s important to make sure your racking system, if roof-mounted, is properly flashed and sealed to ensure your roof is well-protected against the elements. Areas with high winds or volatile weather require extra secure racking systems. Roof racking systems vary slightly depending on the type of roof.

Monitoring System

It’s important that every residential solar system has its own monitoring system. This is the application that will allow you to view and measure real-time and historical energy production data for your home. Some monitoring systems display this energy production data via a physical display unit, while others employ an online interface, or both! As “smart” or connected homes become more wide spread, solar installers can provide whole-house energy consumption monitoring. In order to ensure your solar system is producing energy efficiently, it’s important to make sure your solar panels are paired with an energy production monitoring system.