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I've heard of quite a few people successfully doing this. Generally, during those times that their home produces more electricity than it consumes, they merely feed it back into the grid, and their power meter runs backwards. Usually, though, over the billing cycle (i.e. month) they still consume more power than they generate, so in effect they just have a much-lower bill than before.

In a few cases, some people who've done this have managed to consume less power than they generate, and in these instances, the power-company owes them money. The power company usually checks *very* carefully to see that their meter is working correctly, but once satisfied, they do get checks for the going rate for electricity at that time.

Contact Dr. Alan Zelicoff - he's done massive amounts of research into this. He's even written an outstanding small book about photovoltaics, saving energy, alternative (and efficient) HVAC systems based on water, etc.

I've heard of quite a few people successfully doing this. Generally, during those times that their home produces more electricity than it consumes, they merely feed it back into the grid, and their power meter runs backwards. Usually, though, over the billing cycle (i.e. month) they still consume more power than they generate, so in effect they just have a much-lower bill than before.

In a few cases, some people who've done this have managed to consume less power than they generate, and in these instances, the power-company owes them money. The power company usually checks *very* carefully to see that their meter is working correctly, but once satisfied, they do get checks for the going rate for electricity at that time.

Contact Dr. Alan Zelicoff - he's done massive amounts of research into this. He's even written an outstanding small book about photovoltaics, saving energy, alternative (and efficient) HVAC systems based on water, etc.

have ruined many innocent lives:
http://www.zelicoff.com/SMLR/PolygraphyFiles/EditT estimonialsPolygraphs.pdf

Anything plugged into an electrical outlet will pull a small amount of electricity for its "standby" mode. This may not seem like much, but consider that's ~300 hours per month, and it's probably a lot of devices. Anything with a transformer on it probably heats up, too, which likely doesn't help you.

Best advice? Read Alan Zelicoff's book "Saving Energy Without Derision" (look further down in this page ). It's about simple ways to save energy, before going to extremes like installing a $20,000 solar installation. You can purchase it for $10 (US) or you might find a PDF of it somewhere out there. It's got loads of advice about watching your usage and carefully managing it.