Installing a solar system is a great way to get started on your renewable energy journey. However, simply installing solar won’t save you money - you need to understand your energy consumption habits and your solar production in order to rake in the savings. The best way to do that is through solar monitoring. In this article, we’ll explore the different factors that contribute to solar savings and how energy monitoring can help you save money on your bills.

What Is Net Metering? And What Are Solar Feed-In Tariffs?

Net metering is a billing method for households with solar that takes into account the energy your home imports from and exports to the grid. In order to take advantage of net metering, you need to have a bi-directional meter installed. A bi-directional or ‘net meter’ measures energy in two directions: the energy you export to the grid and the energy you import from the grid. Your solar installer will make sure that your meter is capable of this or upgrade your meter if it isn’t.

Your provider will have a solar feed-in tariff, which is a set amount of money that your energy provider will pay you back for energy exported to the grid. These amounts vary from provider to provider, but are much lower than the amount you pay for importing energy from the grid.

Bill example: Your bill with solar is calculated as follows (this example uses a 30 day billing period)

Grid usage – Exported energy + Daily Supply Charge (DSP) = Your electricity bill.  

So, if you used 400kWh of grid energy and the imported energy cost was $0.30 / kWh, you exported 700kWh from your solar system at $0.06 / kWh and your DSP is $1 / day over a month your electricity bill would be $108 (=$120 of imported energy - $42 feed-in + $30 DSP).   

TIP: Shop around to see which provider has the best feed-in tariff to make greater savings. Try out this solar feed-in tariff tool from Solar Calculator.

As you can see, your electricity bill will show you how much energy you have imported and exported to the grid. The bill will clearly state how much you paid for the imported energy, how much you were credited (saved) for any exported energy, and your daily supply charge.  

The energy bill provides really good information about your usage and generation, however there are a number of shortcomings that make it difficult to maximise your savings:

• Your bill shows you what occurred in aggregate last month or possibly in the last 3 months for a monthly or quarterly bill - your bill is too coarse grained and too infrequent  to make effective changes to your usage.

• The electricity bill does not show the full extent of your solar savings, it only shows the feed-in amount and it does not show how much you saved through self consumption of your solar.

Solar Monitoring for Net Metering

Using energy monitoring for net metering is helpful because it allows you to keep track of your imported/exported energy data. If you’re after net metering, the Powersensor Essentials Solar Solution can show you exactly how much energy you have imported from and fed back into the grid in both kWh and $ in real-time, so you don’t have to wait until the end of your billing period to see your usage and switch to more cost effective appliances or behaviours. This will give you some visibility into your solar, but as we stated earlier, the energy you feed back into the grid is only one component of your solar savings.

Right now in Australia, many providers are lowering their feed-in tariffs. This makes it much harder to rely on your exported energy to generate savings. The best way to beat the rising costs and max out your solar savings is to use the solar energy you produce as you produce it, or self consume your solar.

Solar self-consumption

Your solar self-consumption is the amount of energy that your solar panels produce that you use to power your home— it’s what’s not fed back into the grid. The energy company has no visibility of what is happening ‘behind the meter’, that is to say your bill will not show you how much of your solar energy you have self consumed and thereby how much in total you have saved. This is where solar monitoring really comes in handy, it provides information that your energy bill doesn’t. For every kWh you consume from your solar system, you save between $0.30 and $0.50 depending on your provider’s rates, whereas exported energy is credited at between $0.06 and $0.10 per kWh. The more you self consume, the less you pay for energy from the grid.

The graph above shows an example of two houses. Both use the same amount of electricity (60kWh) and produce the same amount of solar energy (45kWh) and have the same daily supply charge ($1/day). However, house 1 has a final bill of $27.50 and house 2 has a final bill of $14.80. The only difference between the two is that house 2 self consumed most of the solar that was produced. 

TIP: the more solar you self consume the bigger the savings!

Solar Monitoring for Solar Self-Consumption

Using solar monitoring to keep track of your self consumption gives you total visibility over your energy usage. With the Powersensor Advanced Solar Solution you can look at the days where your energy spend is the lowest and see how much solar energy you self consumed on that day. You can also pinpoint when your solar production was the highest, allowing you to make the changes you need to make in order to maximise your savings.

Taking our earlier example of the monthly bill, which was taken from an actual Powersenor installation we can see the additional information from the Advanced Solution that can’t be found on your bill:

In short, the Essentials Solution will give you just that— the essentials. The Advanced Solution will provide you with those essentials plus everything else you need to fully understand your solar and maximise your savings!

If you’d like to learn more about the different Powersensor Solutions, check out our handy Buying Guide. 

You can purchase a Powersensor Solution through one of our resale partners to start saving today.