Load Shifting with a Solar Power System: How It Works to Maximize Cost Savings and Speed Up Payback

If you’ve got a solar power system at your home in Ontario, there’s a simple strategy you can use to seriously boost your electricity savings. It’s called load shifting, and once you understand how it works, you can make sure you’re never paying the highest power rates.

Load shifting (also known as 'load displacement') means running your home entirely off solar and stored battery power during the times of the day when utility rates are the highest. Instead of buying costly electricity from the grid when rates are at their peak, your home uses the solar energy you already generated and stored earlier.

Powering Your Home with Solar to Reduce Grid Reliance 

The first step is simple: during the daytime, your solar panels typically generate enough energy to power your home directly. So when electricity prices are highest, your home is running on energy from the sun instead of buying power from the grid. That alone will save a significant amount on your electricity bill.

Now here’s where your battery system really starts working for you. When your solar panels generate more power than your home needs, that extra energy doesn’t go to waste. Instead, it charges your home battery system. By late afternoon, those batteries are usually fully charged and ready to power your home in the evening, overnight, and during emergencies when you need backup power the most.

Benefits of Ultra-Low Overnight Utility Plans

Ontario homeowners also have access to something extremely useful: the ULO (Ultra-Low Overnight) electricity rate plan. During the day, peak electricity rates can be as high as 39 cents per kilowatt-hour. However, the ultra-low overnight rate is only about 3.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s incredibly inexpensive electricity. So if your batteries aren’t completely full by the end of the day, your system can automatically top them up overnight using this low-cost grid power.

Never Pay Peak Electricity Rates Again

Imagine a cloudy or snowy winter day when your solar panels can’t produce as much electricity as they do during the summer. Instead of buying expensive daytime electricity from the grid, your home can run on the energy stored in your batteries. That energy was either produced by your solar system or purchased overnight at the lowest possible rate.

When you combine solar panels, battery storage, and smart load shifting, your home becomes incredibly efficient:

• Solar powers your home during the day.
• Excess solar energy charges your batteries.
• Cheap overnight electricity tops them up if needed.
• Your batteries power your home when electricity is most expensive.

The result is simple: you avoid high electricity prices and use the lowest-cost energy available as much as possible.

Of course, getting the most out of load shifting starts with having the right system in place. At Solar Power Store, our team can help design a custom solar and battery setup built specifically to take advantage of strategies like load shifting. That means properly sizing your solar array, choosing the right battery capacity, and setting up smart energy management so your system automatically uses the lowest-cost energy available.

Solar Power Kits & Bundles Built for Load Shifting

• Maple Leaf Northern Fox ESS AIO (All-in-One) Hybrid Solar Power Inverter & Battery Kit
  • A compact and easy-to-install inverter/battery kit featuring a 'stackable' modular design that makes setup a snap. Simply add the plug-and-play battery modules on top of one another to build your system, and expand your energy storage capacity when power needs increase in the future.
    
  • Built for Canadian climates with integrated battery heating functions and fully certified to all Canadian safety standards, Maple Leaf Northern Fox ESS AIO systems are the ideal solar + energy storage solution for all types of residential installations.
• Battery & Inverter Upgrade Kits with Luxpower 18k Inverter & Maple Leaf Moose 280ah 48v LiFePO4 Batteries
  • Already have an existing grid-tied solar power system, but want to upgrade to take advantage of load shifting and ULO electricity rate plans? This kit is the perfect choice. With a high-powered Luxpower 18k inverter and the robust energy storage capacity of the Maple Leaf Moose 280AH LiFePO4 batteries, you'll have all the flexibility you need to leverage load shifting to maximum benefit.
• Complete Hybrid Solar Power Kit with Sol-Ark 15k Hybrid Inverter, Tier 1 Solar Panels, and Pytes V5 Batteries
  • Need a total solar solution including solar panels, inverter, combiner boxes, hardware, cables, batteries, and racking? This kit has it all. Choose from pre-built solar kits from 15kw to 23kw in size to suit even the most power-hungry homes.
  • These complete solar kits are ideal for homeowners who want to DIY their installation, but that doesn't mean you're totally on your own. Solar Power Store offers end-to-end technical support for the lifetime of your solar power system, so help is just a phone call or email away.
  • Don't want to take on the installation yourself? No problem! We also offer full-service installation, permitting assistance, rebate application help, and anything else you may need to make your switch to solar easy and simple.

It's Time to Make the Move to Smart Solar & Battery Storage for Your Home

The goal is simple: maximize your electricity savings and help you achieve the fastest possible payback on your solar investment. If you’re thinking about installing a solar power and battery storage solution, or you want to optimize an existing system for load shifting, the experts at Solar Power Store are here to help.

Contact us for a custom solar quote, or book a call with one of our solar experts to start taking advantage of load shifting with solar power today!