Where the figures live
Start with the methodology, then the meter, production, and the sizing questions. The four worked examples are Lake Zurich, Brookfield, Centennial, and Beaverton. Their tariffs are on ComEd, We Energies, Xcel Energy, and Portland General Electric. The research library lists those pages. This hub does not add a fifth city, a price, or a rebate.
Why these pages sit next to the solar research
A solar page on this site starts from a utility tariff, a production model, and the household’s metered use. The meter explainer describes the sequence: production serves the house first, and the rest exports. The methodology says consumption benchmarks trace to EIA-861, and the city research uses the house’s own bill rather than a national appliance table.
Electric water heating and electric space conditioning change that bill. They also change how much production is used on site, which is the distinction the Illinois buyback page and the Wisconsin solar note already treat as the pricing question. A kilowatt-hour avoided at the delivered rate and a kilowatt-hour exported at the tariff’s export credit are not the same line item.
This hub does not add a city matrix, a price, or a rebate. Each explainer below names the solar page that already holds any figure it repeats.
Water
- Electric water heating on the household bill . An electric water heater is one load on the same meter a solar production estimate is compared against. The value of that load depends on the utility tariff this site already publishes, and on whether the heater draws power while the array is producing.
- When a water heater draws power . A tank stores heat, so the electrical draw is not locked to the moment a tap opens. Whether moving that draw into daylight changes the bill depends on the export credit the utility page already states.
HVAC
- Daytime cooling and solar production . Cooling load and rooftop production share a daylight clock more often than lighting or overnight water heating do. The ComEd and We Energies pages already use that coincidence to explain self-consumption. This page stays with their figures.
- Heat pumps and the shape of the bill . A heat pump can raise the annual kilowatt-hours a solar array is compared with, and it can pile more of that use into winter, when the array’s daylight production is the resource the solar pages already describe. The site does not publish a heat-pump consumption rating, so this page does not invent one.
What this section will not publish
Equipment prices, brand comparisons, installer names, and rebate amounts for water heaters or HVAC are absent because they are not in the solar record these pages are allowed to use. A page that needs a number the repo does not already support describes the mechanism without one.
Readers who want the solar math itself should start with how solar works, the research library, or the state guides linked from the home page.