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Image via Tesla |
In the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice occurred on June 20th this year. It unleashed a sun-soaked bonanza of free energy for folks with solar panels glinting in the sunshine on their roofs. Those sleek photovoltaic babies soak up rays and churn out the kilowatt-hours right where you need them. This slashes those pesky transmission losses that nibble away 5-10% of grid power like a sneaky snack thief. With solar, your roof becomes a mini power plant, fueling your home with clean, sun-kissed juice.
Pair your solar with a home battery, like the Tesla Powerwall, and you’re the superhero of the cul-de-sac. You can laugh off blackouts while your neighbors fumble for flashlights. Summer’s here, and with it come those long sweltering days when air conditioners hum like a buzzing swarm of caffeinated bees, working overtime to keep your home cool, stressing the grid to the brink. Solar panels swoop in like a cool breeze, powering your AC and easing the grid’s sweaty burden, helping keep the lights on citywide.
Got an electric vehicle? Charge it with sunshine! Tesla’s Charge-on-Solar feature lets you juice up your EV straight from your rooftop rays, turning your Tesla into a sun-powered chariot. You can zip past gas stations, grinning as your car runs on free solar swagger. If your panels are pumping out more juice than your home and EV can gulp, the excess spills onto the grid, powering your neighbor’s Netflix binge. Net metering can score you credits, shrinking your electricity bill faster than a popsicle in July. And if your utility has VPP events, you can even get a fat check.
Solar has never been cheaper, with costs plummeting more than 50% over the last decade. A 6-kilowatt system runs $10,000-$15,000 before a juicy 30% federal tax credit (which may not be around for much longer). Financing means you can start saving with pocket change upfront, and your electric bill savings often outpaces the loan payments. Systems can pay for themselves in 5-10 years. Then, once they are paid off, it gets even better. Electricity rates might keep climbing, but you won't care.
Rooftop solar isn’t just smart; it’s your ticket to a cooler, greener, and brighter future.
One Sunny Day
Here's our solar data from a few days ago. You can see by the color where the solar energy was directed. The first thing to note is that production started at 6AM and finished at 8PM. That's 14 hours of production, peaking around noon at 8.3kW.
You can see that the early morning energy went into the battery. Then at 7AM, when the higher Time-of-Day rates started, the solar was redirected to run our home (shown in blue). Any energy beyond the home's need was directed into our EV (red). By 10AM, the car was charged, then the Powerwall (green) soaked up the extra juice. Before noon, the Powerwall was full; then the surplus solar flowed into the grid (grey), running our meter backward and powering other homes on our block.
You can see the large spikes of blue in the afternoon; this was the AC cycling.
We have many more net-positive days like this one ahead of us.
Disclosure: I am long Tesla