I first had solar panels installed on my rooftop nearly a decade ago. I’ve moved since then and have had them installed on my new home as well. At this point, I’m now familiar with having panels installed and what it’s like using them. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.
The angle and direction of your roof matters more than you think
Solar panels want to face south
When we installed solar panels on our new home, we purchased a system that was slightly under twice the size of our first, but it ended up producing nearly two and a half times the energy. This difference was not due to our installer secretly installing a larger system nor the result of defects. The orientation of solar panels simply matters more than you might think.
A south-facing roof with an unobstructed view of the sky is the most ideal, but my previous home actually faced southwest.
Meanwhile, the backside of my new home faces due south. Very little shade ever lands on our roof, so aside from cloud cover, the solar array just bakes all day long.
It takes a lot of panels to fully replace your energy usage
Prepare for a large upfront investment
When I tell people we have solar panels, the first thing they want to know is whether we still have a power bill. So far, my answer has always been yes. Modern American homes use a lot of power, particularly due to our centralized air conditioning and electric water heaters. Offsetting all of that with solar takes quite the investment.
This is why, for our second home, we’ve installed two separate solar arrays. The first went up when our house was built. Since this was new construction, we had no history of energy usage to give the installer. We took a guess at our needs, then figured we’d come back when we were ready to expand our system to close the gap. Our first array consists of 28 solar panels each capable of producing 400 watts, totaling an 11.2kW system.
We’ve since purchased 16 more panels providing an additional 7kW of power, based on our energy usage from our first year of owning the home. As a result, we now have over 40 panels on our roof. The two solar arrays should hopefully offset our entire electric bill, but due to the nature of how net metering works, we won’t know for sure for another year.
Net-metering rules make all the difference
Whether your power company will credit you for energy depends on where you live
We live in a state with net metering, so each month the power company measures how much energy we pull from the grid, compare that to how much energy we send to the grid, and then charge us the difference. If we pulled 1,400kWh and sent back 1,000kWh, then they charge us for 400kWh. If we send more than we pull, then they put that credit toward future bills.
Let’s imagine our house uses an average of 2,200kWh of energy each month, totaling 26,000kWh each year. As long as our solar panels produce 26,000kWh of energy each year, we break even, and our bill goes away. The company merely charges us for the connection fee and taxes.
Here you can see in the Enphase Enlighten app how our home produced 15,000kWh of energy in 2024 and 2025. Our second array didn’t go online until the end of 2025, which is why the 2025 number is slightly higher.
The math varies per location, as some power companies aren’t required to credit you the same amount for energy provided that they charge you for energy produced. I’m fortunate to live in a state (Virginia) and work with a power company (Dominion Power) that honors a full 1:1 ratio. Some states and power companies don’t provide a net-metering option at all, meaning you now need to rely on batteries if you want to fully offset your electricity cost—which greatly increases your upfront cost.
Solar is one of the best financial investments you can make
Money saved is money earned
Solar panels come with an intimidating upfront price tag, but the thing is, you’re going to spend that money either way. You either pay to use the energy that someone else produces, or you pay for the infrastructure to produce that energy yourself.
A house of our size, with two electric cars, can easily leave us with electric bills of over $400 a month adding up to over $5,000 per year. We paid around $50,000 for our solar panels (and received around a third of that back in tax credits). That’s a big number, but it’s a number that pays for itself in under 10 years, especially when you factor in that we used to spend a comparable number in gas each month before switching to EVs. And this math does not even factor in that energy costs are steadily going up!
My wife and I are only in our 30s. That’s many decades to live, hopefully, without the cost of energy and transportation hovering over our heads.
Pay for solar panels like you would a car
Don’t lease or rent—buy them outright
I recommend paying for solar the same way you pay for a car. You either make the entire purchase in cash, or you get a loan.
During the period when you’re paying off a loan to purchase panels, you may actually be paying more per month than before. That’s because your loan payment may be higher than the amount you’re saving on utilities. But unlike a car, solar panels ultimately make you money in the long run, and they last decades. You eventually hit the point where the loan is paid off, and you’re then left without a loan payment, without an electric bill, and, if paired with EVs, what amounts to free gas.
Without a battery, your panels go down with the grid
For most of us with solar panels, power outages are still a thing
Panels need to send electricity somewhere, and any energy that doesn’t go to your home goes to the grid. When the power goes out, your house still loses power. It would be unsafe to send electricity along power lines that someone is actively working on.
We haven’t added batteries to our solar array yet, since they only pay for themselves if you live in an area where net-metering is not an option. For us, batteries are purely an added cost like a home backup generator. For the time being, we’ve opted for cheaper large portable power stations instead. This way, we still weather power outages on battery power and solar alone.
My wife and I have spent most of the past decade gradually transitioning to solar power and electric cars, and that investment has paid off. We aren’t stressed in the winter as we run our 5-ton HVAC, nor do we need to factor in the cost of gas into taking a spontaneous day trip. Taking out those loans was a daunting prospect in the beginning, but it feels great being on the other side where energy is abundant and free.
