How Much Electricity Do Solar Homes Still Buy From the Grid? Measured Month by Month in 117 LA Homes

These are the same 117 homes, 22 of them with a battery, measured in how much solar a home actually uses. That page follows the solar; this one follows the electricity coming in from the grid: how much, in which months and at what point in the year the balance turns. Each home is measured over its latest 12 complete months, for most of them October 2025 through September 2026.

The typical home ended its 12 months 495 kWh behind: a little more bought than sent back. The utility split is wider. LADWP homes without a battery used a median 38 kWh a day against 25 in SCE territory, and their panels made 87% of their yearly use against 106%. So the median LADWP home without a battery bought 2,043 kWh more than it sent back, while the median SCE home sent back 346 kWh more than it bought.

Battery homes bought a smaller share of their electricity, 44% against 62% without one, yet more kilowatt-hours, 8,261 a year: they are bigger households, at a median 41 kWh a day. What the battery itself moves is measured in how much solar a home actually uses.

Whether a home ends the year ahead is decided by size. All but one of the 43 homes whose panels made more than they used sent back more than they bought; none of the 52 homes making less did. How much a home buys is decided by timing. Even the homes making 130% or more of their use bought a median 2,629 kWh a year, because the panels cannot serve the evening, the night or a short winter day. More panels add to the midday surplus; they do not reach the hours after sunset.

From March through July the typical home without a battery sent back more than it bought. From August through January it bought more, with October and February roughly even, and December was the deepest month: −8.4 kWh a day, with 76% of homes buying more than they sent back. April was the opposite: +11.2 kWh a day, with 15%.

Two different things drive the two buying seasons. In late summer the homes simply used more: a median 37.7 kWh a day in August against 24.5 in April, most likely for cooling, and in 82 of 117 homes August was the highest-use month, after production had already peaked in June or July. In winter use is ordinary but the sun is short: in December the panels made a median 16.2 kWh a day against 40.9 in July.

The late-summer peak is not a solar-home quirk. SCE’s own figures for all of its residential customers show the same shape: about 337 kWh per account in April and 702 in September on average in 2024–2025, the highest month in its reports. SCE reports billed kilowatt-hours by report month, and for its solar customers those are already net of their own solar.

Daily totals still show the night clearly. On a day when the panels made more than the house used, any electricity the home bought had to come in at hours when the panels were not keeping up: early morning, evening and night. On such summer days the typical home without a battery bought 11.1 kWh, 50% of that day’s use. On surplus winter days it bought less, 8.5 kWh, but a larger share, 63%, because winter evenings are longer. Panels make nothing after dark; see do solar panels work at night.

How these kilowatt-hours turn into a bill depends on the utility. SCE bills monthly and settles the year with a true-up in the month the system started service. LADWP nets energy over each billing period, usually two months; a surplus becomes a credit that carries forward with no time limit but is never paid out. Details: SCE solar billing explained, the NEM true-up bill and LADWP net metering.

In kilowatt-hours, the typical SCE home without a battery came out slightly ahead over its 12 months, +346 kWh, and 24 of 44 sent back more than they bought. The typical LADWP home without a battery came out 2,043 kWh behind, and 16 of 48 came out ahead.

The month the year starts changes the path, not the total. Starting in March, at least half of the homes never went below zero: the spring surplus came first and carried them through late summer and winter. Starting in July, the same homes were a median 957 kWh behind at the low point before spring caught up. A running balance deep in the red in December is normal for a system whose year starts in summer; it says little about where the true-up will land.

These balances are energy, not money. SCE’s NEM 2.0 time-of-use plans net the bill in dollars at different prices by hour, and under net billing each exported kilowatt-hour is credited at an hourly export price that is usually far below the retail price, so a kilowatt-hour balance near zero can still leave a true-up bill. See NEM 3.0 export credits explained.