Solar Panels

In December 2019, we installed an array of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels, or solar panels and they went live in February of 2020. The array is composed of 10 panels, each 330 watts, for a total system capacity of 3.3 KW. Soon after we installed the panels, the new tenant moved in. Similar to what we discovered during the water audit, we determined that our total energy usage increased by 123% on average after the tenant joined our household, largely due to increased A/C usage and significant electronics use in their room.

For a final project in my Sustainable Business Practices program, I compared our solar monitoring system to the LADWP bills I received and erroneously concluded that 43% of our production was not being included in our net metering. I thought that all of my solar energy went to the grid and all of the energy my house used was pulled from the grid. In reality, my house was using some of my solar power directly, but this energy was not reflected in my bill. With this corrected understanding, our solar panels are currently covering about 66% of our total energy usage. Our tenant moved out at the end of May, so I am interested to see how our usage changes.

On a celebratory note, for the April 2022 billing period, our production exceeded our usage for the first time since installation!

Page last updated 6/26/2022