What is Net Metering? Ask a Solar Expert from Bella Energy from Bella Energy on Vimeo.

Transcript of Video:
Hi my name is Alison Hyde and I am a Solar Advisor for Bella Energy. The question today is what is net metering and how does it work? So you have probably heard about “spinning your meter backwards” and being about to put electricity back on the grid. And net metering is a method of metering that lets you get credit for every kilowatt hour you put back on the grid. So when you have a solar electric system installed, the utility is going to come out and give you a new bidirectional net meter. That is going to be able to keep track of not only the kilowatt hours your house is pulling from the grid, but the amount of electricity your system is putting back on the grid.

So say it is a sunny day, and you system is chugging away, you’re out of the house or on vacation or your home just isn’t consuming as much electricity as that system is putting out (producing) then that electricity is going to flow onto the grid. Then you are going to get a 1 to 1 credit, so for every kilowatt hour you put back on, you will get a kilowatt hours worth of credit from the utility for that excess production. So what you produce during the day you will be able to use up at night, and the same principle happens as you’re producing more energy in the longer day’s of summer and you can use up those credits in the winter.

Because of net metering we can design a system to your total annual kilowatt hour or energy usage, not just your instantaneous demand. And in most cases what is going to happen is the utility will roll over excess production throughout the year, from month to month, and at the end of the year you can either opt to roll those credits over into the next year or to have them pay you out for your excess production. In most cases what they are going to pay you out at is going to be the wholesale rate or the utility’s avoided cost of energy. So as you’re paying about anywhere from 9 cents per kilowatt hour to 11 cents per kilowatt hour for your electricity what you’ll get paid for your solar production at the end of the year is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood or 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Tags: Net Metering, solar expert