A Veridian Cost Savings Story

Included in the price of every new home at Veridian are solar panels and a battery backup system - which can be used in the event of a grid outage but also stores power generated from solar panels during the day and is used to power the homes when the sun isn't shining. Sarah and Garret, residents at Veridian, share their story:

"On August 6th 2025 we received our electric bill from DTE for the month of July. We had heard about the record high energy bills that most of SE Michigan was experiencing, but our bill was only $1.33! How did this happen? Well since February we have been living at Veridian, a solar powered, net 0 carbon footprint, sustainable community. We have an array of Solar panels with a PV of 7.8 kWp and a 10 kWh capacity battery. On a clear sky summer day we are producing over 50 kWh. Our roughly 1,300 square foot home consumes about ~15kWh a day to run A.C. and appliances. Counter intuitively we actually blast our A.C. through the hottest time of the day, even if we are not home, because our solar panels will cover the energy cost. However, the big energy consumer is our electric car that we charge every night. We utilize DTE’s overnight savers plan and charge the car at 1am-7am every night at DTE’s cheapest rate, currently 11.34 cents/kWh. A typical day's commute for us takes 19kWh to charge back to full.

"So all that combined on a typical summer's day we net produce ~ 16kWh more than we consume. Which gets sold to DTE at roughly an average of 4 cents per kWh. So when DTE sends us their bill we see that yes we bought $54 of electricity, but we sold them $121. The excess gets banked for future bills. Then all that is left is some fees amounting to $1.33."

*Disclaimer: these results for Veridian homeowners are typical but we can not guarantee this type of savings...it all depends on owner lifestyle!