This month marks three years since we’ve had our solar array turned on.

And even though we spend five to eight hundred dollars a year on our firewood we are still coming out with a net of zero on our utility bills.

Some background:

With the contract we have with DTE they pay us about ten cents a killowatt hour for generating power, then they allow us to use what we generated. The net result is a negative electric bill for the last three years.

However, we do use some natural gas, primarily for the dryer, but also for the cooktop and for some space heating and some hot water heating. So we have a gas bill, it is just far less than the electric credit.

The balance comes to us every year or so in the form of a check. This money has basically paid our bill for hardwood delivery. (We really enjoy wood heat, I’m not convinced that it actually saves us money.)

Our total power generation for 3 years is 31 Mega Watt Hours, or roughly $3,100 of electricity at our current rates.

Not bad!

 Mail this post