6 things I’ve learned after ten years of rooftop solar

I first installed solar panels on my roof about ten years ago. I have since moved and installed them in my new home as well. At this point, I now know what it’s like to install panels and use them. Here’s what I learned along the way.

The angle and orientation of your roof is more important than you think

Solar panels should face south

When installing solar panels on our new home, we bought a system that was twice the size of our first, but it produced about two and a half times the energy. This difference was not the result of our installer secretly installing a larger system or bugs. The orientation of solar panels is more important than you might think.

A south-facing roof with an unobstructed view of the sky is ideal, but my previous home actually faced southwest.

Meanwhile, the rear of my new house faces south. There is very little shade on our roof ever, so apart from the cloud cover, the solar array is baked all day.

It takes many panels to fully offset your energy use

Be prepared for a large initial investment

When we tell people we have solar panels, the first thing they want to know is whether the electric bill is still there. So far, my answer has always been yes. Modern American homes use a lot of energy, especially thanks to our centralized air conditioning and electric water heaters. Compensating all this with solar energy requires a considerable investment.

So we installed two separate solar arrays for our second home. When our house was built, it went up first. Since this was new construction, we did not have energy usage history to provide to the installer. We estimated our needs, then figured we’d come back when we were ready to expand our system to fill the gap. Our first array consists of 28 solar panels with a power of 400 watts each, for a total of 11.2 kW.

Since then, we have purchased 16 more panels, providing an additional 7 kW of power based on our energy usage from the first year we owned the home. As a result, we have more than 40 panels on our roof. The two solar arrays should hopefully offset our entire electric bill, but because of how net metering works, we won’t know for sure for another year.

Network metering rules make all the difference

Whether your energy company will give you an energy credit depends on where you live

We live in a net metering state, so every month the power company measures how much power we draw from the grid, compares it to how much power we send to the grid, and then bills us for the difference. If we draw 1400 kWh and send back 1000 kWh, then they get 400 kWh from us. If we send more than we withdraw, they put that credit on future accounts.

Let’s imagine that our home uses an average of 2,200 kWh of energy per month, for a total of 26,000 kWh per year. As our solar panels generate 26,000 kWh of energy each year, we break even and our bill disappears. The company only charges us connection fees and taxes.

Here you can View in Enphase Enlighten How our house produced 15,000 kWh of energy in 2024 and 2025. Our second array didn’t go online until late 2025, so the 2025 number is a bit high.

The math varies from place to place, as some energy companies charge you for the energy produced and don’t require them to credit you the same amount for energy. I am lucky enough 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 the option of net metering at all, meaning you now have to rely on batteries if you want to fully offset the cost of electricity – which greatly increases your upfront costs.

Solar power is one of the best financial investments you can make

Money saved is money earned

Solar panels come with an intimidating initial price tag, but the thing is, you’ll be spending that money either way. You either pay to use energy that someone else produces, or you pay for the infrastructure to produce that energy yourself.

A household our size with two electric cars could easily leave us with electric bills of over $400 a month, which is over $5,000 a year. We paid about $50,000 for our solar panels (and got about a third of that back in tax credits). That’s a big number, but it’s one that pays for itself in less than 10 years, especially considering we used a comparable amount of gas every month before we switched to electric cars. And that math doesn’t even factor in the ever-increasing energy costs!

My wife and I are only 30 years old. I hope we have many decades to live without energy and transportation costs hanging over our heads.

Pay for solar panels like a car

Don’t rent or lease – buy them outright

I recommend paying for solar the same way you pay for a car. You either make all purchases in cash or get credit.

While you are paying off the loan to buy the panels, you may actually be paying more per month than before. Because your loan payment may be higher than the amount you save on utilities. But unlike a car, solar panels ultimately pay for you in the long run and last for decades. Finally you get to the point where the loan is paid off and then when the loan is debt free, with no electric bill and combined with EVs, What does free gas mean?.

Without batteries, your panels go down with the grid

For many of us with solar panels, power outages are still a thing

The panels have to send electricity somewhere, and any power that doesn’t go to your home goes to the grid. When the power goes out, your home still loses electricity. It would be dangerous to send electricity along power lines that someone is actively working on.

We haven’t added batteries to our solar array yet because they only pay for themselves when you live in an area where grid metering isn’t an option. For us, batteries are just an extra cost like a home backup generator. For now, we have opted for cheaper large portable power plants instead of. This way we still air blackouts with battery power and solar power only.

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My wife and I have spent most of the last decade gradually transitioning to solar power and electric cars, and that investment has paid off. Since we run our 5-ton HVAC, we don’t have to stress in the winter or worry about the price of gas for a spontaneous day trip. Taking out these loans was a daunting prospect in the beginning, but it feels great to be on the other side, where energy is abundant and free.