selling power back to the power company

[placez]

Is there a way to tell how much energy is being sent back to the power company

 

[schmism]

Assuming your on an official sell-back plan, then yes its on the power bill you get.

If your giving them free power, then you'll have to refer to the logs on the inverter you have.

 

[Maast]

If you're inverter is good enough to sell power back to the grid it'll have logs and a display you can access - but you may have to buy a remote or similar to see it.
There are also third-party measuring devices - usually with a donut hall-effect sensor that goes around the outgoing AC line.

 

[markver]

Yes, for instance on the Enphase Energy system they offer CT sensors, one for the PV production side and one for the consumption side (loads). You use the power you make first then the excess power can charge a battery back-up or goes back to the grid. The system does the math and you see where your PV power is distributed. See attached stats from today. The blue is PV production and the orange is total power consumption. The 19.7kwh is the total Exported to the grid. We also imported from the grid 16.7kwh at night, so the net sum is 3.0kwh exported to the grid.
Sorry for the long answer, I hope this helps...

 

[newbostonconst]

If the power company kwh meter is digital and isn't setup for net metering then you are likely going to pay for the power you send back into the grid. The digital meters take inflow and outflow then add them and charge you for all power that flows through them. I haven never heard otherwise that they weren't setup like that.

Once you have a net metering agreement they reprogram the meter to measure and save the values for flow direction independently.

 

[mico179]

to add to the original question, has anyone actually tried to make a viable small time business( at least compared to industrial producers) out of selling power back to the grid? like maybe 300-500$ on the very minimum as gross profit.