That depends on how much electricity your home or business uses, where you live, the rate your utility company charges for electricity, and several other factors.

Most solar providers aim to offset 70–90% of your monthly electricity bill, so that’s a good place to start your calculations.

Choose an On-Grid solar power system. These systems are designed to work in conjunction with the grid or simply put your electricity supply. The electricity you generate using this system is fed back to the grid. A net meter is installed along with this system to keep track of the electricity consumed by you versus what you generated and fed back to the grid resulting in savings which gets reflected in the bill. But keep in mind that it does not work when the grid is down, so if power back up is your objective, go for an off-grid solar solution.

The most crucial component of a residential solar power plant is an inverter. It acts as an interface which converts power produced by solar panels into electricity which can be consumed to appliances. The type of inverter being used depends on the kind of solar power system you are going for. Grid tie solar power systems need high efficiency power inverters for optimising the performance. Another kind of high efficiency solar inverters are there for the off grid solar power system that can charge batteries both from solar and grid power. The inbuilt MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) charge controllers in some good quality inverters extract up to 30% more power from solar panels.

When you plan to buy an inverter for your home or commercial space, the first question that pops into your mind is what is the difference between solar inverter and normal inverter. This question doesn’t have a single answer as everything from the operations to inverter battery varies in both the options. So, you should read on and know the differences in detail before making the purchase decision.

The solar inverter consists of solar panels, a charge controller, some switching circuits and batteries and inverters. It has a terminal for connecting the battery and solar panels of correct rating. The inverter battery is charged from the output of solar panels when it is under sufficient sunlight. In a solar inverter, the photovoltaic solar panel produces variable direct current (DC). The inverter converts this direct current into alternating current. Using a solar inverter will help you reduce the electricity bill. Solar panels can be placed at homes as well as offices.

In reality, you probably won’t want to go off grid. The practice is known as “islanding”, or when you connect your solar array to batteries so you’ll be able to power your home or business entirely on solar energy instead of using the utility company for power.

The thing is, this practice is incredibly expensive and inefficient for most people.

Batteries are not only expensive, they’re not as technically developed as solar panels (read: they clunk up the operation). They also need to be maintained and replaced routinely.

Most solar adopters choose to stay on the grid out of convenience and money-saving.

When you stay connected to the grid, you’ll be able to generate credits with the electric company to lower the price of your bills.

This practice is known as net metering.

Right now you don’t have any control over the electricity rate your utility company charges. And trends show that electricity rates will continue to rise.

When you install solar panels on your property, you’ll be generating more electricity than you use from the utility company at the price of free.

Then you’ll also generate more than enough to sell back to the utility company as credits to further lower your monthly bills. No more surprise electricity bills to tank your budget again.