The starting point for every homeowner considering solar is to look at their energy bills and see how much energy they consume throughout the year. For most of us, our energy usage won’t be consistent year-round as we deal with Wisconsin’s weather and dramatic changes in seasons. Also, every home is different. One home may have an electric furnace which means their energy bills spike in the winter while another uses all electric air conditioning so their bills will spike in the hot summer months.
Getting a realistic picture of your home’s energy consumption is foundation of our tailored process for ensuring the numbers make sense. That consumption is essentially our target for what we are going to reduce with a solar energy installation. Starting from that point means everything that following is based on your specific needs and goals.Â
The next step is to use modeling software to see how much solar energy your home has access to. This is where our Wisconsin only residential focus makes the difference because we know how our specific climate impacts what solar can do for your home because we deal with it too. This means things like tree shading, shorter days in winter, snow loss, solar declination, and the albedo effect.Â
After this modeling your energy consultant will tailor the design to your specific needs and requests. Some common examples: No panels on the curb facing roof, no chance of cutting down trees, possibly expanding your home in the future, sizing up for an electric vehicle down the road, and countless more. Once all this has been taken into account we generate an accurate projection of what your solar energy system would produce. See the graph below.
The final step is putting all the numbers together by overlaying your consumption and your production to see how the proposed solar energy install would impact your energy bills. Depending on your utilities solar net metering policies you can even receive money back as a credit for the excess energy you produce.
