So, my Xcel utility bill for July 2024 = -$17. That’s right, minus $17.
My 6 kW home solar system, installed by ARE Solar in June 2022, has been covering pretty close to 100% of all my electric use AND this includes heating my 1200 square foot townhome with high efficiency electric convention wall heaters.
However, my July 2024 utility bill marks the first time I’ve generated a minus balance, and this includes all of those confusing utility fees that few of us fully understand — or at least I don’t understand them all.
All told, across a little more than two years, my 6 kW system has produced 13,300 kWh, or 2,000 kWh more than I have consumed 🙂
Of course, my 2020 Chevy Bolt is not plugged into this solar system. Our garages at Highline Crossing Cohousing in Littleton, Colo. were deliberately constructed away from the townhomes to force people to walk to their cars — and increase social contact. HCC is a deliberately community focused, well, community 😉
Our garages here at HCC have 9.4 kW worth of solar installed on them, thanks to efforts by me and other community members in 2020, and despite the fact that my 2020 Chevy Bolt is now one of seven electric cars at HCC — when I first moved to HCC in summer 2017 my 2014 Nissan LEAF was one of just two electric cars — that system has produced thousands more kWh than we have used so far.
In fact, across our garages, community house and about 40 townhome units, we now have six solar systems that total 43 kW worth of solar production.
And some of these solar systems, including my own now, are generating minus utility bills. In fact, right now, I have a $201 “rollover dollar bank” with Xcel. I will use most of this bank in the winter of 2024-25 when I, once again, heat my townhome with eheat.com envi wall heaters.
I love home solar! 🙂