Will solar actually cover your electric bill?
Sometimes. The gap between what gets promised at the kitchen table and what arrives on the meter is the most common source of solar regret.
The pitch is simple and it is the reason most people buy: your electric bill goes away, and the loan payment replaces it. Sometimes that is roughly what happens. Often it is not, and the difference is the single largest source of complaints in residential solar.
- “guaranteed the solar system would cover 100% of my electricity bill... My bills show the system barely covers 20%” Homeowner complaint record, TX
- “system installed would cover electricity costs plus 10% more...I continue to get [utility] bills” Homeowner complaint record, CA
- “told me I would produce more energy than I need to cover my electric bill” Homeowner complaint record, AZ
- “Salesman pitched that we wouldn't have an electric bill” Homeowner complaint record, UT
- “electric bill would go down substantially...biggest LIE” Homeowner complaint record, FL
- “Electric bill more than doubled” Homeowner complaint record, UT
- “i now pay more than DOUBLE what i used to pay” Homeowner complaint record, TX
Some of those are underperforming systems. Some are systems working exactly as designed, sold against a promise the system was never going to meet. Telling those apart is the useful skill, and it splits into two questions: was the promise realistic, and is the system actually producing what it should?
Why a bill survives even when solar works perfectly
This is the part that surprises people most, and it has nothing to do with anybody cheating.
| What stays on the bill | Why |
|---|---|
| Fixed connection / service charges | You are still connected to the grid. Most utilities bill a monthly service charge regardless of how little you import — solar does not remove it. |
| Night-time and winter usage | Panels produce nothing at night. What you use then comes from the grid unless you have storage. |
| The value of exported power | What you get for surplus you send back varies enormously by state and utility, and in many places it has been cut. Exporting is often worth less than importing costs. |
| Taxes and riders | Assorted line items that scale with the fixed charge rather than usage. |
| True-up settlement | On annual-settlement plans the balance arrives as one large bill, which is alarming if nobody told you it was coming. |
A well-sized system on a good rate plan can still leave a modest monthly bill. That is normal. "You will have no electric bill" is the sentence to be sceptical of.
How production estimates work — and how they get oversold
A production estimate is modelled from your roof's orientation and pitch, local irradiance data, shading, and assumptions about panel degradation. Done honestly it is a reasonable forecast with a stated margin. The overselling happens in the assumptions rather than the arithmetic:
What to interrogate in the estimate
- What annual kWh does this system produce, and what do I use? Get both numbers, in kWh, on paper. If the production number is not compared against twelve months of your actual usage, the estimate is decorative.
- What shading assumption was used, and was it measured or eyeballed? Trees grow. A model built on a bare-branch winter site visit and no shade analysis will overstate output.
- Does it assume my usage stays flat? An EV, a heat pump or a new baby changes consumption. So does moving to a smaller household.
- What degradation rate is assumed over the loan term? Panels lose output slowly every year. A twenty-five year projection with no degradation is not a projection.
- What export rate is assumed, and what happens if the utility changes it? Export compensation is set by regulators and has been cut in several states. A model assuming today's rate for twenty years is assuming something nobody can promise.
- Is there a production guarantee, and what does it actually pay? Some contracts guarantee output and compensate the shortfall. Read what triggers it and what it pays — often much less than the value of the missing power.
Is your system actually underperforming?
The other half of the problem: systems that are genuinely broken and nobody notices. This is the most frequent complaint in the entire solar record — not a bad sale, but a system quietly producing nothing while the payments continue.
- “system was offline from July 2023 until March 2024” Homeowner complaint record, CA
- “I have not received any solar power since the first week of November” Homeowner complaint record, UT
- “The system has failed every six months since installed in 2023” Homeowner complaint record, MO
- “approximately two-thirds of the panels were not producing power” Homeowner complaint record, UT
- “8 of the 18 solar panels have not worked since November... No call, no-show, no-text” Homeowner complaint record, TX
- “inverter on our solar system stopped working — discovered via a huge electrical bill” Homeowner complaint record, AZ
- “It took 3 months to get someone” Homeowner complaint record, UT
Checking it yourself
- Compare actual annual kWh against the estimate in your contract Year over year, not month over month — seasons swing wildly. A system landing within roughly 10% of a well-built estimate is doing its job.
- Look for panels or strings reading zero A dead string or a failed optimiser shows as a flat line while everything else follows the sun. This is the clearest possible evidence for a warranty claim.
- Check the inverter for fault lights Inverters are the most common failure point in a solar system — they carry shorter warranties than panels for a reason.
- Compare against a neighbour, or the same month last year Rules out a genuinely dull season as the explanation.
- Ask your utility for your import history A jump in imported kWh dates the failure precisely, which matters when you are arguing about how long it was broken.
If it is underperforming and nobody will come
Put it in writing with numbers attached — contracted estimate, actual production, the date output dropped, and screenshots of the monitoring. A written claim with data behind it is treated very differently from a phone call saying the bill seems high.
Then escalate in the order that creates records: the installer's service manager by role, the equipment manufacturer directly (panel and inverter warranties are theirs, not the installer's, and they often survive when the installer does not), your state contractor licensing board, and your state attorney general's consumer division.
Get an independent production check
Any licensed solar company will inspect and test a system they did not install. That report is what converts "I think it is underproducing" into something a manufacturer or a regulator will act on.
Who to call
Solar installers by city
Get a second opinion on your system
Tell us your city and what your monitoring shows. You get local solar companies who can test the system and document what is actually wrong.
Get matched with an installer Browse solar service typesQuestions homeowners actually ask
Why do I still have an electric bill after getting solar?
Several charges survive even a perfectly working system: the utility's fixed monthly service charge for staying connected, power you import at night and in winter, taxes and riders, and the gap between what exported surplus earns you and what imported power costs.
A modest ongoing bill is normal. "You will have no electric bill" is the claim to be sceptical of — ask instead for your total monthly cost after solar, loan payment and utility charges included.
How do I know if my solar panels are underperforming?
Compare a full year of actual production in kWh against the estimate in your contract — annually, not monthly, because seasonal swings are enormous. Within about 10% of a well-built estimate is normal.
Then look at your monitoring for panels or strings reading zero while others follow the sun, check the inverter for fault lights, and ask your utility for your import history — a jump in imported kWh dates the failure precisely.
What is a realistic percentage of my electric bill for solar to cover?
It depends on roof orientation, shading, your usage pattern, your utility's rate structure and what your state pays for exported power — which is why an honest answer is always a modelled number rather than a slogan.
What should worry you is any guarantee of 100% offset with no mention of fixed connection charges, or a projection that assumes today's export rates hold for twenty years. Complaint records include a "100%" promise that delivered around 20%.
My solar system stopped working and the installer won't respond. What can I do?
Document it in writing with numbers: contracted estimate, actual output, the date production dropped, and monitoring screenshots. A written claim with data is treated very differently from a phone call.
Then go around the installer where you can — panel and inverter warranties belong to the manufacturers and often survive when the installer will not respond or no longer exists. After that: state contractor licensing board and your attorney general's consumer division.
How often should I check my solar production?
Monthly, and it takes five minutes. The most common expensive failure in the complaint record is not a broken system — it is a broken system nobody noticed, running for months while payments continued.
Several homeowners discovered outages only via an unexpectedly large utility bill. Set the monitoring app up yourself rather than relying on the installer to be watching, and confirm you can see per-panel or per-string output.
What is a solar production guarantee and is it worth anything?
A contractual promise that the system will produce a stated minimum, with compensation if it falls short. Some are meaningful; many pay out far less than the value of the missing electricity.
Read what triggers it, what it actually pays, whether you must claim within a window, and who honours it. A production guarantee from the installer is only as durable as the installer — which, given how many residential solar companies have closed since 2024, is worth checking.