Enter your total bill amount and your rate per kWh to estimate your actual monthly electricity usage.
This subtracts a fixed service fee before dividing by rate — most utility bills include a small flat charge separate from usage-based charges.
Every utility bill combines a small fixed connection fee with a usage-based charge, so subtracting the fixed portion before dividing by your rate gives a more accurate kWh estimate than dividing the whole bill. This is a fast way to plug real usage into our solar panel sizing calculator when you don't have the actual statement in front of you.
This is a genuinely practical shortcut when you're trying to get a fast solar sizing estimate and don't have a bill handy — most people remember roughly what they pay per month far more easily than their exact kWh usage, so working backward from the dollar figure gets you to a usable number quickly.
It's listed on your utility bill, usually per tier if you're on tiered pricing, or you can search your utility's published rate schedule online.
Tiered or time-of-use rate structures charge different amounts for different usage blocks or times of day, which a single flat rate can't fully capture — treat this as a solid approximation, not an exact figure.
It's a solid approximation for flat-rate billing — tiered or time-of-use rate structures introduce more variance since you're not really paying one flat rate per kWh, so treat the result as a good estimate rather than an exact figure in that case.