Like most Americans, you probably haven’t read your electric bill all the way through, and depending on where you live in the country your electric bill could be bundled with other municipal bills. Here in New Jersey our electric bill comes unaccompanied from other utility bills. Let’s take a look at what you can find on your monthly electric bill!

What’s on your bill?

First, you will most likely see a summary of your bill, which will include current charges and electric price. Then there will be a more comprehensive breakdown of your bill. That will include a meter reading, breakdown of services and price, usage profile, and kilowatt-hours. What does all that mean? We’ll explain it all for you!

First Things First

Let's explain what a kilowatt hour (kWh) is. This is a unit of measurement for electricity use, speed over time. Wattage measures how fast the electricity is being consumed, and time measures how long that electricity is being used at that speed.

Let’s Break it Down

Above we have an electric bill from one of our customers at Solar Me, which is why their bill is only $3.25, because they have solar panels.

• The green highlighted area is where we will find the account summary. Every electric bill will have this whether you have solar panels or not.

• Going further down the bill is where the more comprehensive breakdown is. The blue highlighted area is the meter number (first blue line). Your meter keeps track of the kilowatt hours, or amount of electricity consumed in excess of what the panels are producing and/or what is being consumed at night for that month (second blue line) and the month prior (third blue line). The fourth blue line is the difference between each month. Say your produce 2 kWh and you consumed 10 kWh, your kilowatt hours metered would increase.

• The purple highlighted area is what the solar panels are producing in excess of what is being consumed during the day. Say you produce 10 kWh and consume 2 kWh, the kilowatt hours out would increase by 8 kWh.

• The orange highlighted area is what surplus solar energy is credited to the customer’s account.

As you can see, installing solar panels can significantly affect your electric bill. Some of our recent 2022 customers came to Solar Me with electric bills of $172 for February, $235 for July, $228 for August, and $417 for September! This is outrageous when you could be paying $0 a month for electricity.

Interested in installing solar or an EV charger? Click here for $500 cash back on solar installation!

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Citations

https://blog.arcadia.com/ultimate-guide-power-bill/

https://news.energysage.com/whats-the-right-way-to-read-your-electric-bill/

https://www.bostonsolar.us/solar-blog-resource-center/blog/how-to-read-your-electric-bill-with-solar/

Written by Jessica Maliszewski | December 23, 2022