Self-Consumption: Using Your Own Solar Energy
Self-consumption means using the electricity your panels produce directly, instead of exporting it to the grid. It's almost always more financially valuable than selling your excess.
Why Self-Consumption Matters
When you use solar power directly, you avoid buying grid electricity at full retail price. When you export it, you typically get paid less — sometimes much less.
Example: If you pay €0.20/kWh for grid electricity and receive €0.08/kWh for exports, every kWh you use directly is worth €0.20, while every kWh you export is worth only €0.08.
Self-consuming 80% of your production instead of 40% can nearly double the financial value of your system.
Typical Self-Consumption Without Optimization
A standard solar system without batteries or load shifting has a self-consumption rate of about 25–40%. Most production happens midday, but most consumption happens morning and evening.
How to Increase Self-Consumption
Shift heavy loads to daytime:
- Run your washing machine and dryer during peak solar hours (10:00–15:00)
- Program your dishwasher to run at midday
- Charge EVs during the day if your car is at home
- Use timers for water heaters and pool pumps
Add battery storage: A home battery can increase self-consumption to 70–90% by storing midday excess for evening use.
Install a heat pump: Electric heat pumps for heating and hot water can absorb large amounts of excess solar production, especially with a hot water tank acting as thermal storage.
Smart home integration: Smart plugs and home energy management systems can automatically shift loads to high-production periods.
The Self-Consumption Sweet Spot
The goal isn't 100% self-consumption — that would mean undersizing your system. The sweet spot is typically 60–80%:
- High enough to maximize the value of each kWh
- Low enough that you're still producing enough total energy to cover your needs
Monitoring Self-Consumption
Most modern inverters track self-consumption automatically. Look for:
- Self-consumption ratio — % of solar production you use directly
- Self-sufficiency ratio — % of your total consumption covered by solar
- Grid import/export — how much you're still buying vs. selling
Optimizing self-consumption is an ongoing process — you'll learn your patterns over the first few months and adjust.
Size your system based on real numbers with our solar calculator.