Understanding your solar billing plan
How Sunrun helps you escape California's peak summer rates
*If you’re enrolled in a Distributed Power Plant program, such as CalReady
THE SBP SITUATION
Summertime changes with your utility
See the three main factors at play for Sunrun system changes this season
Summertime rate changes
Your utility’s solar billing plan** includes higher rates in the summer*** than other times of the year due to increased demand such as summer heat and school breaks, which puts more strain on the grid.
Time of use rates (TOU)
Utilities charge peak rates between 4–9 PM. You may see your home pull from the grid when solar production is available. This allows your battery to capture more solar energy during the day to store until expensive peak rate hours begin.
Solar export rates
During specific summer hours your utility gives you high-value credits for your exported energy. Sunrun programs your battery settings to capture these valuable credits which can help offset future utility charges.
MINIMIZE YOUR UTILITY BILL
Master your summer energy habits
Your Sunrun battery is smart and your habits make it even more effective. By more closely aligning your home’s electricity usage with solar production, you can minimize your utility bill.
Timing is everything
In the middle of the day, California’s grid is often flooded with solar energy. Because supply is high, the credits you earn for exporting during these hours are at their lowest value. Here’s what your battery does to combat this, and what you can do as well:
Your battery outsmarts rates: Your smart battery is programmed to know exactly when grid energy is expensive and when exports are most valuable (typically during peak evening hours and grid events). Let your battery do the heavy lifting, and rest assured it has your wallet in mind.
Sync your energy-drainers with the sun: Once your home energy storage is full, any unused solar energy will be sent straight to the grid. By doing your best to shift energy heavy activities for mid-day, you can minimize low value exports to the grid, and in turn extend your battery life during the evenings when you’d otherwise run these appliances or activities.
Try to run these appliances while the sun is high:
Laundry & Dishwashers: Set timers to run at noon rather than 8 p.m.
Pool Pumps: Program your cleaning cycles for midday.
EV Charging: Plug in during the day if you’re home, or use your charger’s solar charging mode.
Battery Programming
Battery behaviors that shouldn't raise an eyebrow
While your primary goal is to use as much of your stored energy as possible, there are some other battery behaviors that help generate value for you. A few common summertime system behaviors include:
Daytime discharge to the home
If your battery predicts that it can refill itself before expensive evening hours hit, it may discharge midday to meet your home energy needs.
Stored energy is saved for later
When you need some extra daytime energy, your home might pull from the grid, rather than your battery, saving stored energy for use during evening peak rate hours.
Quick discharge
When a Sunrun CalReady event is taking place, or your battery recognizes other times for high-value export credits, it will discharge while maintaining its set reserve for outages.
Distributed Power Programs
Battery changes with Sunrun CalReady participation
FAQs
Changes in battery behavior can be related to a few different factors, including your utility’s rate schedule and crediting methods, battery programming, Sunrun CalReady participation, and more. Sunrun prioritizes financial and outage protection interests in mind by managing your battery for you.
To take a closer look at your battery’s behavior, open the Sunrun app to see:
If a distributed power program grid event has occurred or is upcoming
View battery charge levels under “Charts”
View battery usage under “Charts” and toggle “Show sources”
View production vs. consumption under “Charts”
Utility summer rates and crediting values are likely the largest factor in your battery’s behavior changes. Other factors that might impact your battery behavior include:
Weather and daily production levels
Grid event through CalReady participation
For Tesla batteries only, occasionally, a maintenance discharge occurs for battery health
If you are using more energy than your system is producing, that additional power has to come from somewhere, either your battery or the grid.
Under the Solar Billing Plan, the rate you pay for electricity is different from the rate you are credited for solar energy exports, and those rates change throughout the day. Most of the time, solar homeowners are credited significantly less than they pay.
If you are pulling from the grid, that means it is more economical to buy the extra power you need from the grid during the day so you can keep your battery full to use during peak hours when grid energy is much more expensive.
While you will always receive a utility bill for fixed grid-connection fees, your home solar and battery are powerful tools to control how much electricity you use from the utility.
Sunrun automatically manages your battery behind the scenes to shield you from the utility's highest evening rates. To keep your remaining utility bill as low as possible, an effective strategy is to shift as many of your highest energy-consuming habits to the middle of the day as possible.
See the “Master your summer energy habits” section above for more information.