Solar Energy Update: May 2019

The weather in our part of the county was unseasonably rainy and cool last month. At times, it felt more like winter than spring!
Because of the cloudy weather, energy production from our rooftop solar panels dropped by 25% from last May.
Positively, our electricity usage also declined. While it’s rare for us to use our air conditioning until the summer, there has definitely been no need for it this year.

Despite our modest power production, our electric bill still dipped by 4% relative to last year. For comparison, our electric bill last month was 88% lower than it was in May 2017 – before we had our home solar energy system installed.
The cloudy weather did negatively impact how many solar energy credits we earned to offset out future electric bills. Our solar credit bank grew only half as fast as it did last May. But as we get closer to the summer, we still have more credits saved up now than we did a year ago.

At the end of this month our rooftop solar panels will be celebrating their second anniversary. Which can mean only one thing – a deep dive into two years of solar energy and electric usage data at the beginning of July. Try not to lose too much sleep over the next month waiting for it!