Can You Sell Your Solar Energy Back To A Power Company?
Solar Energy: Can It Be Sold?
Advances in construction, manufacturing, and technology have made the possibility of generating solar energy from a residential property an affordable and practical possibility for many more homeowners than was previously possible two or three decades ago. Many local governments have relaxed their building codes regarding such matters, but there can even be property tax breaks, rebates, and other financial incentives encouraging the use of such technologies.
A lot of homeowners love having their own power from solar panels because it reduces their power bills while also giving them a clean source of energy they can feel good about. However, some of them wonder if they can extend the savings by selling their unused solar energy back to their local power company. Unfortunately, the answer to this is not a clear-cut yes or no, as there are many factors involved.
In Some Cases…Yes!
For starters, your home has to be connected to the grid in order for you to even be able to physically give power into it. Some who choose solar power systems for their home design them in such a way that they do not actually have a physical connection to the local grid established at all. They want to live ‘off the grid’ in a literal sense, and in doing so can not profit from it. However, most homes with solar systems do have a grid connection, given that their solar power often isn’t enough to power their entire home all the time.
A second necessity is a local power company willing to buyback solar power from homes that generate it. Some will do so, if the home selling it is, in fact, a currently-paying customer for electricity, making the buying of solar power a simple matter of rebates or credits on the power bill. If more solar power is bought than grid electricity used, though, they might not pay the difference, instead just rolling the credits over towards future bills instead of cutting a check. Discover one of the best solar energy company in New Mexico, plus the new office that just opened Alamogordo solar energy company.
The concept of selling excess solar power back into the grid appealed to many for a while as a way of possibly financing their system, especially if it was generating juice on hot afternoons they weren’t home and the local utility company needed every bit of power it could get to run everyone’s air conditioners. However, as battery technology is making leaps and bounds, more and more homeowners with solar systems are just keeping their own juice in storage until needed at night or on a cloudy day, making the issue moot in many cases.