HOW SOLAR CREDITS WORK
Give one. Get one.
Extra solar earns credits. Use them after dark.
Preparing your solar home…Extra solar earns credits.
How it works
By day: Solar powers your home. Extra power goes to the power company and earns credits.
At night: The power company sends electricity to your home. Your credits help pay for it.
One for one: Send 1 unit of electricity. Earn 1 credit. Use it for 1 unit later.
Try turning things off. Using less leaves more credits for later.
A simple example. Solar payments and other charges are separate. Your plan sets the credit rules.
See the numbers
A year’s balance, shown in one day. The first 6 AM–6 AM day illustrates annual solar offset. Solar makes 64.365 kWh and the home uses 61.30 kWh: 105% offset, adding 3.065 credits. The surplus equals 5% of energy used. The first-day result stays separate from the next morning’s live balance. It is a teaching example, not an annual forecast; seasons and weather are not simulated. Turning appliances off changes the result.
What a credit means. Here, 1 credit covers 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity from the grid. The top gold bar shows credits left. Below it, blue shows grid power used, and the transparent gold bar shows all credits earned from extra solar since this run began. Earned credits exclude the two carried-over credits and solar used directly at home. Gold holds steady at night while blue grows, so you can compare them. All bars use the same scale for this example, not an account limit. kW measures power right now; kWh measures energy over time.
(kW)
Starting with 2 carried-over credits at 6 AM: credits left = opening credits + energy sent out − energy taken in, with a minimum display of zero. The opening balance represents credits earned on a previous day; it does not count as today’s solar production. Grid use beyond your credits appears above as Extra grid use. Your home keeps getting power. Later solar can cover earlier grid use. The blue bar starts growing as soon as the home takes electricity from the grid. It counts grid use whether or not credits are available.
Example loads. Washer 0.50 kW · fridge 0.15 kW · TV 0.12 kW · lights 0.18 kW · air conditioner 2.00 kW. Other standby use adds 0.20 kW. Solar peaks at 10.7275 kW. Turning the air conditioner off for the full 24 hours leaves 53.065 credits at the first-day checkpoint while the other appliances follow their routine. The fridge and air conditioner run all day. The washer runs 9–10 AM and 2–3 PM, the TV 7–11 PM, and the lights stay on except from midnight to 5 AM. The next morning’s wash starts at 9 AM. These are illustrative running loads, not measured appliance cycles or savings predictions.
Watch the next sunrise. The animation continues to 9:30 AM the next day: about 103 seconds at normal speed. With the automatic routine, credits remain above zero, fall to about 3.27 around 7:25 AM on the second morning, then grow for about eight seconds to 6.91. The first morning’s minimum is about 0.21. The low point is about 5% of the shared bar scale; the separate first-day surplus is 5% of energy used. More usage can exhaust credits; no positive balance is forced.
Try a new day. Clicking an appliance holds your choice from that moment; the others keep their routine. Use daily routine hands control back from the current time. Play again keeps your manual choices for a fresh day. Reset clears your choices. Rewinding and changing a switch replaces later manual choices without changing past energy use.
Your solar PPA is separate. You pay for solar electricity under your agreement. Credits go on your utility bill. They do not store electricity or provide backup power. Billing schedules, credit rules and other charges depend on your plan. More about solar.