The Importance of Monitoring

We are here today to talk about net energy metering statements N.E.M statements, which is what you should get every month which updates you on your usage vs. your production.

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Now it’s important to remember when you get the net energy metering statement every month that PG&E doesn’t know what you use or what you produce they only know what you put into that meter and what you pull out of that meter. So every month to get a running total of where you’re sitting throughout the year at the end of the 12-month process is called the true up and that true up is your whole year’s worth of usage vs your whole year’s worth of production that is going through your meter.

Frequently asked questions I get is how that works and part of my job is to sit down and explain it show people examples of you know other peoples statements so that they understand when they get the statement how to read it. Most people find that very very confusing and it’s really helpful part of what we do.

One of the best things about Dawn’s job is she comes out once the job is completed and goes over how to read your statements and how to read your energy bills and goes over your warranties and all of your equipment. Another benefit to having Dawn coming out to talk to you is when she goes over the different platforms of monitoring which you have access to and we have access to as well So you have the no true up software which is our software that we developed to help monitor you and show you not only what you’re producing on an hourly basis but what you’re giving to the grid and taking from the grid and then the second platform would be the monitoring app from the inverter and that helps you to know your production and then that let you know if there’s any issues with the system that you need to be aware of and then you can give us a call.

And that’s a simple app that goes on your phone that you can check at any time of the day to make sure your system is running, even on a panel by panel basis. So one of the big benefits of the no true up software is prior to that if you’re system went down and you were not checking your app whether you were on vacation or even just too busy and you weren’t checking anything, you didn’t know that your system was down and we’ve had people that have had that and the systems been down for a period of time without them knowing. So now we will know within two days of anything like that happening so basically we’ve always got your back.

A lot of times we hear stories about people having large true ups at the end of the year. Part of that reason is they are not opening their monthly statement that they get from PG&E so true up should never be a surprise but also additions to your electric usage throughout the year can add to your true up as well. For instance you decide to buy an electric car or if you decide to move in a distant relative into your house that’s more kilowatt hours that you’re going to be using, therefore the system may not be covering everything you’re doing that’s why it’s important to know what your time of use times are & Dawn goes over all of that with you throughout so you can absolutely manipulate your true up statement at the end of the year.

Yeah that is one thing I let a lot of people know is that it is really important to pay attention to your peak times and try to conserve during those times, a lot of people have no idea that that’s how it works and they think that they just have unlimited free power I feel it’s really important part of my job is to let them know so that Mike doesn’t get the phone call at the end of 12 months that they have a high true up. And education is key the better you listen to her the better you are able to manipulate that true up and live life more comfortably the way you want it to be. That’s the goal I think is is letting them know that you can be comfortable and that’s part of what we design your system for is for you to be able to be comfortable but you still have to be mindful we built this system based on your 12 months previous usage and most people were being pretty conservative during those 12 months.

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