Once you have a handle on your energy bill, you’ll have a better sense of your actual energy needs now and can think about what they’ll be in the future, especially if you get solar and want to get an EV or electrify your home more to take advantage of that free energy. 

This will also help you figure out what your goals should be for your solar system. The prime driver for most people is usually saving money on your utility bill by avoiding using energy from the utility. As we’ve mentioned, how much you can save depends on how much energy you use, how much you pay for electricity, how big your solar system is and whether you include a battery.

If your utility offers net energy metering (NEM), you can also get paid for the excess energy your system generates, particularly in the late spring through early fall. That money serves as a bill credit that can help offset your electricity bill during fall and winter when your system is producing less energy (mainly because the sun is on a more southerly path, the amount of daylight is shorter, and there tends to be more cloudy days).

At the end of each year, your utility does a “true-up” based on how much energy your system produced and how much electricity you drew from the grid. If you produced more than you used, they may owe you money; if it’s the other way around, you may owe them money (but if your system is sized right, it shouldn’t be much). Or you may simply break even for the year and essentially didn’t pay for any electricity, which is still a win in our book.

But beyond savings, you may want a system with batteries that helps you weather power outages, provides even more energy independence, or simply prioritize using renewable energy for more of your day versus polluting fossil fuels that may be powering your grid energy. Regardless of your reasons for going solar, a new system can help meet your goals.

Once you decide to go solar, you'll want to start thinking about your current electricity needs and how they might change over time. This will help you create a baseline energy consumption profile that you can share with your installer so they can use that information to help design your system.

Your utility should be able to provide you with your current consumption through your online account. Simply log in and download the data. This is what you want to gather for your installer:

12 months of utility bills: Go back through your past year of electricity bills to get a clear understanding of your energy consumption. Within that data, you’ll want to include:

• Daily kWh usage: This helps understand your hourly/daily demand.
• Monthly kWh usage: This helps identify seasonal peaks and average monthly usage.
• Peak demand charges: If your utility charges different rates at different times of day (time-of-use), you can identify when you use the most power, based on the rates you're charged. This can impact battery sizing.

Your utility company may offer a tool called Green Button. Green Button allows you to easily download your usage data with all the details your installer needs to design a custom solar solution for you. You’ll need to create an online account with your utility to access the data and see if your utility offers Green Button sharing.
It may also help you determine future electricity usage if you know, on average, how much energy your electrical appliances are using and if you plan to further electrify. Your utility bill likely won’t show that level of detail. But here are some averages:

Some energy management software solutions, such as Sense, can give you more appliance-level insights into your home's energy use. You can also upgrade to a smart main electrical panel, like SPAN, which shows you the energy used in each circuit in your home.

If you’re getting solar, you’ll likely want to further electrify your home to save as much money as possible. That could include switching from a gas furnace to an electric heat pump, switching to an electric stove, and charging a new EV at home.

You may also plan to grow your family or add onto your house. All these factors will affect how much electricity you use now and down the road. You need to plan your system to ensure it’s producing enough energy to offset the additional usage.

Your Enphase installer can use your current consumption profile and future electrification plans to help determine your needs now and in the future. Then, they can size your system—working within the parameters of your home’s available roof space—to meet them.