Let me try and help you decipher your Xcel bills to help you understand what you can and cannot glean from the data Xcel provides you. First, you cannot judge what is happening with your solar system by the kWh purchased from Xcel nor dollars you pay them on your utility bill. Xcel provides a combined electric and natural gas invoice, plus the kWh given to Xcel as listed on your bill are not the full kWh your solar system produced in the time period. So you will not get a complete full picture of the health of your solar system by the kWh Xcel depicts on your bill.
Second, the Xcel bill does NOT show the electricity your solar system produced that was consumed directly by your home. The bill only shows excess electricity your solar system made and send to the grid when your home did not need the power “Total Delivered by Customer”. The only means to see total kWh your solar system produced is on your monitoring app.
Want to know more? Read on
Lets dig into your bills under the usage column:
- “Total Delivered by Xcel”. This is the electricity in kWh that you took from the grid in this billing cycle and the meter spun forward.
- “Total Delivered by Customer” This is the electricity in kWh that you gave to the grid during this billing period & the meter spun backwards.
- “Net Delivered by Xcel” will be the difference between the first 2 numbers discussed above (If you have a time of Use meter the net will be for that specific block time use).
- If you took more from the grid than you gave, then the “Net Delivered by Xcel” will be a positive number and the “Net Generated by Customer” will be zero.
- If you produced and gave to the grid more than you took from the grid then the “Net Generated by Customer” will be a positive number that then gets transfers to your solar bank.
Lastly, you must remember that the “Total Energy” is the total of what went through the meter, it does not count the energy your home consumed directly from your solar system, as that never when through the meter and thus Xcel does not record it.
