100% of the energy used to power our show comes from the sun! 33 solar panels on the back of the roof provide enough power to run our show – and everything else in the house! When the sun is shining, power from the panels covers all our use and the extra flows back into the electric grid, helping power the rest of the community. At night and during bad weather, our power comes from the grid, just like everyone else’s. Over a year, we generate more power than we consume. Our output is highest during the Summer afternoon, when electric demand is the highest so our production helps Dominion Power’s peak generation capacity.
2021 installed Equipment:
- 33x Hanwha Q Cells Q.Peak Duo-G6 340 watt panels
- 33x Enphase IQ7-60-2 microinverters
- Installed by Solar Energy World through Solarize Virginia
2021 Capacity:
- 11.22 kW array size (DC power)
- 8.1 kW peak generation (ready to use AC power)
- First year generation: 12 MWh
- More energy produced than consumed except for November – January
In April 2024, we switched our remaining gas appliances to high efficiency electric heat pumps and turned off our natural gas service. That left us with about 4 MWh that we had to purchase from the grid every year, in the months November-March, when our electric need is the highest (heat) and solar generation is the lowest. To compensate, we added an additional 13 panels and 5 kW of capacity through the final year of Solarize Virginia in summer 2025 to once again have 100% solar coverage.