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HIGHLAND - In a recent episode of “Our Daily Show!” with CJ Nasello, GRID Solar breaks down a net metering policy change that will affect Ameren Illinois customers.
Ryan Wagner, co-owner of GRID Solar, explained that the new policy is “less than advantageous” to customers because it will affect how solar customers “trade” energy with Ameren. Solar systems overproduce electricity in the summer and underproduce in the winter. In the past, Ameren would calculate how much energy was overproduced in the summer and provide this energy back to the customer during the winter.
Now, Ameren Illinois will make these calculations every month, meaning winter power bills will likely rise. To prevent this, GRID Solar will begin installing systems with a battery included. The surplus energy produced during the day will now go to the battery, so the battery can power the home during nighttime when no energy is being produced.
“If you overproduced 50 kilowatt hours and then obviously at nighttime you didn’t produce the 50 you needed, your bill was still zero because of what you overproduced during the day,” Wagner explained. “So now they’re not giving that full credit. If you give them 50 kilowatt hours, they’re going to give you the value of around 30 kilowatt hours back. To prevent that less-than-advantageous trade-off, we’re going to design most systems starting with a battery, because the battery will give you 100% of whatever you give it during the day.”
Wagner explained that this new design will allow customers to mostly avoid pulling power from the power grid. Instead, a customer’s power will come from the solar system and the battery.
“All of that overproduction is going to go directly to your battery, and that’s good because we don’t want it to go to the power company,” he said. “Now during the day, if your house is ever drawing more than you’re producing, you also don’t have to pull back from the grid either because now your battery can supplement, so now you have three sources of power. You have the grid, you have solar, and you have your battery. The battery and solar are almost always enough during the day to completely keep you from drawing from the grid.”
The battery also means that a home can have power even when the power grid is out. The battery has stored up a surplus of electricity, so the system can switch to the battery backup as needed.
Though the net metering policy change is challenging for a lot of Illinois customers, Wagner pointed out that a solar system is still affordable with the help of the 30% federal tax credit and Illinois’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program. But he cautions customers against waiting to install their solar system, as he believes this program “will not last forever.”
“That’s another thing I tell all the customers,” he said. “If you missed the boat on net metering, don’t miss the boat on the SREC.”
Wagner encourages people to contact GRID Solar with any questions about net metering, batteries or solar systems. He likes to remind his customers that information is always free. Visit their official website at GRIDSolarLLC.com or their Facebook page for more about the company.
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