The Sundarban
Published Mar 7, 2026, 6:00 PM EST
Bertel is a lifelong tech enthusiast with over a decade of ride writing thousands of articles about Android gadgets, Linux, and more.
Earlier than becoming a member of the How-To Geek team, Bertel wrote for the likes of MakeUseOf, MakeTechEasier, and Android Police—at the latter he wrote over 3,500 articles. He delights in serving to others mediate which tech to carry into their lives… and which tech to carry out with out.
Bertel graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2012 with levels in Historical past and Government. He has spent his entire career since as a tech journalist overlaying Android, Linux, Wearables, Internet Apps, and more.
I first had solar panels installed on my rooftop nearly a decade ago. I’ve moved since then and have had them installed on my original house as properly. At this point, I am now familiar with having panels installed and what or no longer it is care for using them. Here is what I’ve learned along the way.
The angle and direction of your roof matters more than you have confidence you studied
Solar panels want to face south
When we installed solar panels on our original house, we purchased a machine that was a bit of below twice the size of our first, nonetheless it certainly ended up producing nearly two and a half occasions the energy. This distinction was no longer attributable to our installer secretly installing a larger machine nor the high result of defects. The orientation of solar panels merely matters more than you may mediate.
A south-facing roof with an unobstructed scrutinize of the sky is the most ideal, nonetheless my old house actually faced southwest.
Credit ranking: Bertel King / How-To Geek
Meanwhile, the backside of my original house faces due south. Very cramped shade ever lands on our roof, so aside from cloud duvet, the solar array apt bakes all day prolonged.
It takes a lot of panels to totally replace your energy usage
Prepare for a large upfront funding
After I repeat of us we have solar panels, the very first thing they want to grasp is whether or no longer or no longer we level-headed have a energy bill. So far, my answer has always been certain. Contemporary American homes exhaust a lot of energy, particularly attributable to our centralized air conditioning and electric water heaters. Offsetting all of that with solar takes fairly the funding.
This is the reason, for our 2d house, we have installed two separate solar arrays. The primary went up when our house was built. Since this was original construction, we had no historical past of energy usage to give the installer. We took a guess at our wants, then figured we would approach back when we have been ready to expand our machine to shut the gap. Our first array consists of 28 solar panels each capable of producing 400 watts, totaling an 11.2kW machine.
We now have since purchased 16 more panels providing an additional 7kW of energy, based on our energy usage from our first year of proudly owning the house. As a result, we now have over 40 panels on our roof. The 2 solar arrays ought to level-headed optimistically offset our entire electric bill, nonetheless attributable to the nature of how accept metering works, we may no longer know for determined for another year.
Credit ranking: Bertel King / How-To Geek
Gain-metering principles make all the adaptation
Whether your energy company will credit you for energy will rely on the place you stay
We stay in a state with accept metering, so each month the energy company measures how great energy we pull from the grid, compare that to how great energy we ship to the grid, and then charge us the adaptation. If we pulled 1,400kWh and sent back 1,000kWh, then they charge us for 400kWh. If we ship more than we pull, then they achieve aside that credit toward future payments.
Let’s imagine our house makes exhaust of an average of 2,200kWh of energy each month, totaling 26,000kWh each year. As prolonged as our solar panels manufacture 26,000kWh of energy each year, we break even, and our bill goes away. The company merely charges us for the connection rate and taxes.
Here you can stumble on within the Enphase Insist app how our house produced 15,000kWh of energy in 2024 and 2025. Our 2d array didn’t trot browsing till the high of 2025, which is why the 2025 quantity is a bit of greater.
The math varies per location, as some energy companies aren’t required to credit you the same amount for energy offered that they charge you for energy produced. I am fortunate to stay in a state (Virginia) and work with a energy company (Dominion Energy) that honors a elephantine 1:1 ratio. Some states and energy companies don’t present a accept-metering chance at all, meaning you now want to rely on batteries if you happen to want to totally offset your electrical energy value—which greatly increases your upfront value.
Solar is one of the finest financial investments you can make
Cash saved is money earned
Solar panels approach with an intimidating upfront rate tag, nonetheless the article is, you are going to expend that money both way. You both pay to make exhaust of the energy that any individual else produces, otherwise you pay for the infrastructure to manufacture that energy yourself.
Credit ranking: Bertel King / How-To Geek
A house of our size, with two electric cars, can easily leave us with electric payments of over $400 a month adding as a lot as over $5,000 per year. We paid around $50,000 for our solar panels (and purchased around a third of that back in tax credits). That’s a expansive quantity, nonetheless it certainly’s a quantity that pays for itself in below 10 years, especially if you factor in that we stale to expend a comparable quantity in gas each month earlier than switching to EVs. And this math does no longer even factor in that energy costs are steadily going up!
