Use More of Your Own Solar: Simple Daytime Habits That Cut the Bill

Under the net billing rules, the units you export to the grid are paid at a much lower rate than the units you buy from it. Our worked example shows how big that gap is. The practical takeaway is simple: use as much of your own solar as you can while it’s being made.

Look at your app first

Open your inverter app on a sunny day and see when you’re exporting. Usually it’s between about 10 am and 3 pm, when panels are at their peak and the house is quiet. That’s your window.

Move these to midday

• Water motor: fill tanks around noon. A simple timer switch does this every day without anyone remembering.
• Washing machine: late morning loads instead of evening ones.
• Ironing: do the week’s ironing in one sunny session.
• Cooking: if you use an induction cooktop or electric oven, lunch and pre-cooking dinner on solar saves the most. See induction cooking on solar.
• Geyser: in winter, heat water in the afternoon with solar. More in heater and geyser on solar.

Pre-cool in summer

Switch the AC on around 1 to 2 pm instead of 6 pm. The heavy cooling happens on solar, and in the evening the AC only maintains temperature, using far less.

Let the battery do the evening

If you have a battery, set the inverter so solar fills it during the day and the house runs from it in the evening, when grid units are expensive. Most hybrid inverters, including Infinix models, have a “solar first” or self-consumption mode for this.

Small habits, real numbers

Shifting even 3 to 4 units a day from evening to midday adds up to around 100 units a month. At the gap between import and export rates, that’s a meaningful saving every month, without spending a rupee on new equipment.