Grid tied system, still have a bill, now what?

[drkinikin]

I need help.I am guilty of being the gross offender of electricity usage in my neighborhood.
That being said, I called a company and they came out and the only request I had was that I wanted a net zero system installed and I financed It through the hero program . On May 1st 2016 we turned it on. 40panels on my roof. My avg monthly bill is $500.00.
My wife would call me each month and alert me to each months bill had approx. A $200.00 deficit on it.ow and behold when the 1 year anniversary hit, Edison auto debitted me $2,200.00.
The solar contractor came out to church out the system. Took a copy of my vim to go back to his office but said everything looked "Ok, to him and he would get back to me. That was October 1. I haven't heard back yet. Thoughts?

[sensij]

I moved this post to its own thread.

Here are some possibilities:

1) The system wasn't sized correctly for your consumption.
2) There is a source of shade or other loss that wasn't accounted for in the design.
3) There was an installation error (sounds like this was ruled out).
4) Your consumption went up over previous years, perhaps because of the "I have solar now, electricity is free" mentality that some adopt.
5) You are are on the wrong tariff for your consumption pattern, or tariff changes have made your electricity more expensive than planned.

Where are you located?
How large was the system?
Are the panels south facing, tilted, or some other orientation?
How much energy consumption did you have before solar?
If you look at what the system says it produced over the first year, and add it to the net consumption on your true-up, how does that compare to past consumption?

[Mike90250]

Or the electric company never updated the meter and you got billed for every watt you pumped into the grid, plus every watt you used at night

[inspron]

Or the family thought that electricity is now "free" after solar... so massively increased their usage?

[azdave]

Or the family thought that electricity is now "free" after solar... so massively increased their usage?

That was possibility #4 in sensij's post above.

That is my guess too but you need to learn more about your system first to understand what failed to perform. Can you answer any of sensij's questions?

[J.P.M.]

I'd chalk it off to not enough due diligence by the OP about what system capabilities might be, and then peddlers rushed in to fill the knowledge gap with more promises than reality.

[solarix]

A residential customer with large usage is pretty tough to "zero out" There is usually not - enough roof space / the service entry can't handle that much backfeed / or the costs are extraordinary.... Generally a lot better to offset the high cost daytime power with a modest amount of solar and be on the right rate plan to buy the cheap night-time power from the PoCo. Of course, some customers have a deep-seated hatred for their PoCo and want to be totally off - which is really not practical at this stage of the solar revolution and its always hard to please these types.