First Day

On Wednesday, the city inspector came and gave an OK to our solar system. On Thursday, the man from the local power company came and installed a net meter, and I turned on our solar system in the late afternoon (I was advised by the salesman who sold us the solar system to not turn the system on until the net meter was installed, because the old meter would think that solar power was grid power). I've been reading on the Internet about net meters, and I think I understand what is going on. Here is what happened during the first 24 hours.

Withdrew 21 Kwh from the grid (power company). This was during the evening, night, and early morning when the sun was going down or just coming up.

Sent to the power company 25 Kwh. This does not include the solar power used to run our house. This is the solar power that was not needed to run our house and was thus sent to the power company. The difference of the two, 4 Kwh is the credit given by the power company (or the net power, hence the name of the meter). This credit, as I understand it, will be applied to the power used this evening, night, and early tomorrow morning.

Today was a nice day, but not a particularly hot day. The solar panels gave more power in the morning than in the afternoon, and the amounts shown in the online display of inverter-output for every 15 minutes went up and down, probably due to clouds passing by and obscuring the sun.