Memorial Day weekend is here, and you know what that means: the AC comes on, and it mostly stays on until September. For homeowners across southeastern Pennsylvania, that four-month stretch is when electricity bills get painful. And this year, they're going to sting more than usual.
PECO residential rates have climbed to roughly 20 cents per kilowatt-hour — up over 20 percent from where they sat at the beginning of last year. A proposed 12.5 percent rate increase for 2027 is already on the table. Your air conditioner doesn't care about any of that. It just runs.
The Summer Math Most People Don't Do
Here's a rough sketch of what a typical summer looks like on a PECO bill. A 2,000-square-foot home in the Philly suburbs with central air conditioning uses somewhere between 1,200 and 1,800 kWh per month during peak summer. At current rates, that's $240 to $360 per month — just for electricity. Over June through September, you're looking at $1,000 to $1,400 for cooling season alone.
That's money that disappears every single year. And every year, the rates go up a little more.
Why Solar Panels and Air Conditioners Are a Natural Pair
Here's the part that makes solar particularly effective against summer bills: your panels produce the most electricity at exactly the same time your AC draws the most power. Bright, hot, sunny afternoon? Your AC is working hard, but your panels are also cranking out peak production.
During a typical summer day in the Philadelphia region, a well-sized residential system will produce 40 to 60 kWh. That's enough to run your central air for most of the day and still have surplus production flowing back to the grid, where PECO credits you at the full retail rate through net metering.
Instead of being the worst months on your electric bill, June through August become the months your solar system earns its keep — often generating credits that carry you through the shorter days of fall and winter.
What Net Metering Means for Summer Overproduction
Pennsylvania's net metering policy is more generous than most states. When your panels produce more than your home uses — and on long summer days, they often will — the excess goes to the grid and you get credited kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour at the retail rate.
Even better, Pennsylvania doesn't just zero out your credits at the end of the year. If you still have surplus after twelve months, your utility actually pays you for the excess. That's unusual nationwide, and it makes the economics of a properly-sized system even stronger.
Think of it this way: summer overproduction helps pay for winter underproduction. Your annual bill evens out in a way that just doesn't happen without panels on the roof.
SRECs: The Other Way Solar Pays You in Summer
On top of net metering credits, every megawatt-hour your system produces generates a Solar Renewable Energy Credit. In Pennsylvania, SRECs have been trading in the $25 to $40 range in 2026. A typical residential system produces about 9 to 10 SRECs per year, which adds roughly $250 to $400 in annual income — separate from your electric bill savings.
SRECs exist because Pennsylvania requires utilities to source a percentage of their electricity from solar generation. Your roof helps them meet that requirement, and they pay you for it. It's not life-changing money, but it's a nice annual check that most homeowners don't know about until their installer explains it.
The Real Question: What Are You Paying to Wait?
At 20 cents per kWh and climbing, every summer you wait is another $1,000 or more in electricity costs that you could be offsetting with panels. Over five years, that's $5,000 to $7,000 in electric bills — money that could have been building equity in a system on your roof instead.
The federal 30 percent tax credit expired at the end of 2025, and that's real money off the table. But the remaining incentives — net metering, SRECs, and local rebates — still make the payback math work. And the one incentive that keeps getting more valuable every year? The rising cost of the electricity you're replacing.
Solar doesn't just save you money at today's rates. It locks in your electricity cost while everyone else's keeps climbing.
One Thing to Do This Week
If you've been on the fence, here's a low-commitment step: pull up your PECO account and add up what you spent on electricity from June through September last year. Then imagine that number being 5 to 7 percent higher this year — because that's what's already baked in.
If that total makes you wince, it might be time for a conversation about what a system would look like on your roof. We do free assessments and we'll give you the honest numbers — no pressure, no gimmicks.
