Where the figures live
Rates and production facts on this page are already on the solar record. The links below are the places to read them. This page repeats only figures those pages already carry.
- Methodology, how consumption benchmarks and citations are handled.
- How solar works, the meter, production serves the house first, then exports.
- How solar works, production, daylight output and snow cover.
- How solar works, questions, sizing when a new electric load is coming.
- Research library, four worked examples and the utility tariffs.
- Utility pages: ComEd, We Energies, Xcel Energy, Portland General Electric.
Cooling is already the solar pages’ example
The ComEd net-metering page explains instantaneous offset with a specific picture: an air conditioner running at midday. That draw uses solar production in the house, so the household avoids buying the kilowatt-hour at the all-in delivered rate. The page puts that rate near 16¢/kWh. Production the house does not use is credited at the supply rate, 9.66¢/kWh through May 2026. The same page says a system sized above daytime load earns roughly half the per-kWh value on the exported share.
This explainer does not add a cooling-season kilowatt-hour total, a tonnage, or a SEER figure. Those are not in the solar record. The published point is the coincidence: cooling that runs while the array is producing is the high-value case the tariff page already wrote down.
An empty midday house still exports
Shared daylight is not the same thing as shared use. The ComEd billing note says a home with daytime air-conditioning load can consume a large share of production at the retail value, and a smaller household that is out during the day may export more of the same array. The equipment can be capable of running at noon and still sit idle.
That distinction is why a cooling system is not, by itself, a solar sizing argument. The solar pages size from the load that actually occurs during production, not from the nameplate of the air conditioner. The how-solar-works questions make the parallel point for a heat pump: the array serves the higher load only when the system is sized to that load.
The same clock, a wider rate gap
Wisconsin’s published solar note treats daytime HVAC as one of the loads that make self-consumption real. The 2026 Wisconsin page prices on-site use near 19¢/kWh and We Energies exports near 4.2¢/kWh. Cooling that runs in the production window offsets the higher figure. Cooling that runs after sunset is grid energy at the delivered rate, and midday production that was not used has already exported at the lower credit.
The production section adds the seasonal frame without a percentage this page would have to invent. Production is daylight energy. Snow on the array cuts output toward zero while the snow sits, and the annual figures already include typical snow loss. Cooling demand clusters in the warm, bright part of the year. The site does not publish the share of annual production that lands in cooling season, so that share is not stated here.
Worked examples for those tariffs
The ComEd midday example is the tariff on the Lake Zurich page. The Wisconsin daytime HVAC note is the tariff on the Brookfield page. Centennial and Beaverton are the other two worked examples in the research library, on Xcel Energy and Portland General Electric. The methodology is where consumption benchmarks are sourced. This page does not add a cooling-season share for any of them.
What daytime cooling does not prove
A running air conditioner does not mean the array covers the cooling bill. Any hour when the equipment draws more than the array is producing, the difference still comes from the grid at the delivered rate. A new air conditioner, a rebate for one, and a claim that solar “runs the cooling system” are outside this page. The solar research already asks the prior question: what does this house use while the sun is on the roof?
When the equipment is a heat pump, the bill changes in winter as well as summer. That shape is the subject of heat pumps and the shape of the bill.
Existing research this page uses
Every rate and consumption figure above is already published on a solar page. This explainer adds none. Where the solar record has no water or HVAC number, the paragraph states the mechanism and stops.
- ComEd net metering . Uses a midday air conditioner as the example of production consumed in the house, priced near 16¢/kWh, against an export credit of 9.66¢/kWh through May 2026.
- ComEd Smart Solar Billing note . Names daytime air-conditioning load as a reason a house can keep a larger share of production at the retail value, and an empty midday house as the case that exports more.
- Wisconsin solar note, 2026 . Lists daytime HVAC among loads that keep production on site, where it offsets a delivered rate near 19¢/kWh instead of exporting near 4.2¢/kWh.
- How solar works, production . Production is a daylight resource. Snow on the array cuts output while it sits, and the published annual figures already include typical snow loss.