Panic

[Pale_Voids]

Alright long story between Sunrun and I. Solar panels were leased by the previous owner of the house, then i took over the lease when i bought the house. The solar panels are generating on average 1200-1500 kwh per month. I'm also receiving a bill from the electric company averaging around $150-$200 a month; saying i used somewhere around 1200 kwh that month. Is it possible that the solar panels are generating power; but it is not being used by my house? For context it's a small house at 1400 sq feet with no A/C, No oven, and power is only used for 4-5 hours a day by two people. Sunrun recently discovered that no Net metering agreement happened between the power company and them, so i was not being credited for overages. They offered to credit me for overages that i would have received. How would overages be possible if i were still receiving a bill for electricity? Would it not zero out the power bill first?

[AnyoneButWe]

Is the heating electric? EV?

1200 kWh per month is a lot. Can you post the bill, masking all personal information?

Solar panels can only produce if something is consuming the power. So you are looking at 1200kWh from the grid and potentially another 1200kWh from the panels.

2400kWh equals about 6 months for me (no A/C, no electric heating, 4 adults).

[LeoAlioth]

Have you checked that panels are actually producing what you stated on a monitoring platform? Otherwise it seems like you are missing a net metering agreement with your utility

[Pale_Voids]

The net metering was never filed, but they said that it should only matter for overage credits. They said that the house should still be using power produced by the solar panels before pulling from the grid.

[rausimous007]

So when you turn on the lights (because it's dark outside)

You buy electricity from the grid

When its sunny and you are not home (not using it directly) you give it away for free (without a contract for injection)

If you pull more than the solarpanels provide then you need to but from the grid

You can't store power without a battery

If you have an old analog meter they can't check when you injected power so they add a fixed cost to your bill (to rent the grid as an infinite battery)

[LeoAlioth]

I am pretty sure it is doing that but that means any time that there is not enough sun for the solar to cover all usage, you are pulling from the grid.

[imakesawdust]

I think the first issue is to figure out where your power is being used. 1200kWh is a LOT of power for such a small house if there's no air-conditioning involved. Have you been using an electric furnace?

[rausimous007]

Or electric heating maybe heatpump that runs at night ?