Net Metering

Plenty of homeowners considering solar power have asked their sales rep, “What happens when the sun goes down?”

This is an understandable question. After all, one of the historic shortcomings of solar power is that it’s an intermittent power source. Solar panels produce tremendous amounts of energy when the sun is shining, but they don’t produce anything at night.

The short answer, of course, is that most solar systems don’t directly power the home. Solar panels, by default, will backfeed the electric grid. The electric utility will install a special meter called a “net meter” which is capable of measuring the energy going into your home versus the energy coming out of your solar system.

In the solar industry, we also use “net meter” as a verb. So if you’re looking into solar energy, and you wonder, “What happens to my excess energy?” Or, “What happens if I use more than I produce?” The answer to both of those questions comes back to the same concept: net metering.

>> View More