A 9.98 kW power plant on our roof

DIY vs. hiring an installer

Full price per Watt, before tax rebates.

As of October 5, 2026 our solar panels have produced 137,030 kWh of electricity, worth about $15,000 at Utah's average price of 10.95¢ per kWh. That value will change depending on the electricity price you compare it to. There have been zero maintenance costs in the 9.1 years since the system went online in August 2017. The inverter warranty is 12 years and the panel production warranty is 25 years.

Every kWh we push into the grid is credited to our account and rolls over month to month, until our March bill each year, when any excess resets to zero with no compensation. For about $10 a month in taxes and fees, the grid acts like an unlimited battery: we store up summer production for the dark winter months. We're grandfathered into this agreement until 2035. Because a much worse agreement for the homeowner is now in place, we'll most likely add batteries and inverters at that time to self-consume our solar electricity.

Our biggest levers are our electric cars: when the balance runs low we charge elsewhere, and when we have extra we charge more at home.

When our net metering balance hit 4,540 kWh, I started the winter heating our whole house with a 5,600 Watt electric space heater that cost $136, planning to switch back to the natural gas furnace if we ran low. We never needed the furnace, so our heating bill was zero.

It works because the house is well insulated. I raised the attic insulation to R60 and air-sealed around doors and windows. We also switched to a ventless heat pump clothes dryer. A whole-house heat pump would be about 3 times more efficient, but at $5,000 to $7,000 installed it would take 20 to 28 years to pay off, so I'll switch to one when our air conditioner compressor reaches the end of its life.

▶ Watch the space heater video