True Up Bill info & Repairs

Lets go over some basic key terms:

Solar Production

The amount of energy produced by the solar panels, usually measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

Energy Consumption

The amount of energy consumed from the grid, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

Net Metering

The process of excess energy produced by the solar panels is fed back into the grid for credits.

True up Period

This is usually one year, during which the true-up bill is calculated.

Credits

The monetary value of excess energy produced by the solar panels and fed back into the grid.

Charges

Additional fees owed if the energy consumed exceeds the energy produced by the solar panels.

So what is a true up...

Utility companies do a reconciliation of solar production and energy consumption for each homeowner that has solar, and when your energy consumption is higher than your solar production for the time period of reconciliation (usually 12 months) you will receive a true up bill for the difference that you owe for not producing enough solar energy.

Why is it used?

This system is used to determine who owes and who is owed by the utility company. True up bills also have different charges depending on the utility company you are serviced with. These bills are also dependent on the program you're in within your utility company such as NEM 1.0, NEM 2.0, NEM 3.0 for PG&E.

How does a true up bill work?

1. Net Energy Metering (NEM):
‍Most solar systems are connected to the grid, those that are not, usually have batteries to store solar production for the times the sun is down. NEM is a program for solar grid tied homeowners to keep track of solar production or lack thereof. The solar that is produced over your energy consumption amount is counted as credits and the value of those credits are dependent on the NEM program you're enrolled in. These credits will be used at night time or when we have cloudy days and all of this should be calculated by the solar company that installed your system. The utility company released 2 new NEM programs after the first one which lowers the value of the credits given to you for your overproduction. One of the reasons the utility company is lowering the value of credits is because they are essentially acting as your battery, without them you'd need batteries to power your not so sunny days.

2. Monthly Energy Bill:
‍The monthly bills issued every month usually have a fixed fee for being connected to the grid (usually around $10/mo) and then it will also show the net difference between solar production and energy consumption.

3. True-up Period:
‍At the end of the true-up period, typically one year, the utility company calculates the total energy consumed and the total energy produced by the solar panels.

4. Calculations of Charges or Credits:
‍Based on the difference between the energy consumed and produced, the homeowner will either owe additional charges if they consumed more energy than they produced, or they will receive credits if they produced more energy than they consumed.

So why do I get a true up?

When a homeowner receives a true up bill it is surprising the first time, and can be frustrating to be paying a true up bill and solar at the same time. This could be for many reasons but I find the most common reason why this happens is because the usage has changed since installation.
Usually when homeowners get solar they subconsciously use more power or maybe consciously but this is going to result in a true up bill. The solar system is usually designed to produce enough power to support your usage based on your usage previously to getting solar. Most of the time the designers will add an additional 10-20% on top of current usage so that the system will be capable of producing enough power for the next 20 years with degradation rate of the system taken into account.
Another reason homeowners may get a true up bill is because of problems within the solar system that are not seen in time. The solar system was designed to have no off days, even cloudy days are taken into account but fully offline systems are not because they should be working 24/7! If a problem arises and isn't seen the same day then it is likely you will receive a true up, and the longer it takes to get fixed the more money that is wasted on the investment of your solar system and the energy bill that is accumulating on the utility side. This very reason is why Keep It Sunny tries its best to get on site as soon as possible!
Salesmen don't always know their product 100% and a lot of companies just want to make money on install. If they undersized your system to “save you money” on your monthly bill instantly, but then end up with a true up every year, that is immoral in my opinion and false advertising. In the solar boom a lot of companies didn't care about their reputation and just focused on installs where they made money and didn't pay attention to maintenance, and this is what put a lot of companies out of business.
No matter what the reason, known or unknown, we can help you figure out how this happened and how we can fix it going forward, because solar is fantastic, when it works!

True Up Bill info & Repairs

Lets go over some basic key terms:

So what is a true up...

Why is it used?

How does a true up bill work?

So why do I get a true up?

What can we do?

Why go with us?

Frequently asked questions