Peak Hours vs. Sun Hours

Many homeowners should understand by now the concept of Peak Hours.

Peak hours are a certain time of day when most people are using electricity, and they generally refer to the hours of the day time, when people are at work, or watching daytime television at home, or doing laundry. During these hours, PG&E actually charges more money per kilowatt hour. Here is a chart that I found on Google Images that visually represents peak hours.

As you can see form the chart, using electricity from 2pm to 5pm is nearly ten times more expensive than using electricity from 2am to 5am. Of course, this is because no one uses electricity at these hours, usually because they are asleep. This is also one of the reasons why people choose to do their laundry in the evening time: it yields a cheaper energy bill.

Let's compare this peak hour chart to another chart I found on the internet that visually depicts sun hours. That is, the hours that the sun is in the sky, and the intensity of that sunlight.

As you can see, both charts represent the same general shape: it's a bell curve. The peak in sunlight hours are actually closer to noon than to the peak PG&E hours, but they last well into them, and past them. The sun hours bell curve pretty much engulfs the PG&E peak hours.

I am all this just to make one point: when you have a solar energy system, you are actually attaining MORE energy from the sun at precisely the time when you are being charged more for electricity that you are not producing yourself.

This is just another argument as to why all home owners should convert to solar energy. Do not hesitate to call us, and we can give you a home energy evaluation to see if your home is solar capable, and to show you ways to improve your energy usage.