Ever wonder how we match your electricity account with the right amount of the solar project?

It’s both an art and science. Think about community solar like you would if you were installing solar panels on your own property. Too few panels and you’re leaving savings on the table. Too many and you produce more energy than you use. Fortunately, with community solar, you can leave all the calculations to us. Our goal is to assign you a portion of the project that matches your usage so your savings are maximized. Here are the many factors we consider to get that right!

Historical Electricity Usage
First, we look at your historical usage to reliably forecast what you may use in the future. Typically, we look for at least a year of data. This accounts for changes in your usage across seasons, along with changes in production from the solar project. If you’d like to provide more than a year of data, then we’re always happy to include it. However, not everyone has lived in their home for a full year. In that case, if you have the previous owner’s usage, we can use that as a temporary placeholder.

Alternatively, we’d annualize any amount of usage if less than a year is provided, assign you a conservative amount of the project to start, then adjust after we have more usage data on file. For example, say you moved and used 3,000 kWhs after living at your new place for three months between June and August. That’s 1,000 kilowatts per month, but that usage is in the height of summer when the average usage is much higher than the rest of the year. As a result, we don’t expect you to use 12,000 kWhs throughout the year. Instead, we’d temporarily target around half of that – 6,000 kWhs – and like before, adjust your assignment after we have more history.

Not assigning too much
Say we’ve received a full year or more of your historic usage. How much of that do we try to cover? In short, 90%. For example, if you use 10,000 kWhs per year, we will assign you to a portion of the project that’s expected to produce 9,000 kWhs per year. We find this to be a sweet spot to ensure savings aren’t left on the table and that you’re not being assigned too much either, which would misdirect savings from other community solar subscriber accounts.

This target is also important because a large majority of peoples’ historical usage can change by around 10% relative to the prior year. As a result, if your usage dips by that same amount, it’s rare that you would end up with too large of an assignment.

Past or future upgrades
One of the many benefits of community solar is the ability for us to easily adjust your assignment. If the kids are moving out of the house, we’ll adjust it down. If you’re adding a new addition, we’ll adjust it up.

Beyond that, we’re starting to see huge demand for technologies like electric vehicles, heat pumps, electric stoves, and more. We’ll also take the impact of upgrades such as these under consideration. If you’ve had any of those for as long as the usage history you shared with us when we originally made your assignment, then no need to mention it; this usage would already be reflected on your bill. However, if you bought and/or installed any of those technologies AFTER the service history we’ve based your assignment on, please let us know. The uptick in your usage needs wouldn’t have been perfectly captured in your annual usage average yet.

The project location
Consider that the same solar panel will produce varying amounts of electricity over a year depending on its location — a home that uses the same amount of electricity in New Mexico as another in Maine needs fewer solar panels to cover its needs. This is because everywhere in the world has different levels of solar irradiance, which is a fancy way of referring to the concentration of sun that hits any given surface on Earth. Generally, this is affected by how close you are to the equator, the season, how much cloud cover and precipitation occurs there, among other factors. Putting that in perspective, two homes that use 5,000 kWh per year may have somewhere between a 3 kW solar array or a 4.5 kW solar array assigned to their account, depending on where they live. That is a 50% difference!

Solar, HEAP, and more
If you installed your own solar panels on your property and also want to participate in community solar, please let us know. We will take the existing size and/or production of your panels into account when we decide the best assignment for your needs. Note that some states don’t allow you to have both, while some do. Similarly, if you receive Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) credits, this can also meaningfully affect the size of your participation. If either of these apply, be sure to include that information in your enrollment, or share it with our team, so we can maximize your savings.

In short, we consider all factors under the sun (pun absolutely intended) to provide you with the most benefits possible from your community solar subscription. By participating with PowerMarket, you can rest assured knowing that no matter how your electricity usage changes in the future, we’ll always tailor your subscription to your needs.