Real meter data
How much solar do you actually need?
Calculators projected about 1,450 kWh per kW a year. This system is pacing ~1,640. Every measured hour since March is on this page.
A day of sunlight, hour by hour
Monday, July 27. The system made 42.4 kWh. Production rises with the sun about 8am, peaks near 1pm and tapers to zero by 8pm. Remember this shape. It decides everything that follows.
Your bill doesn’t price every hour the same
OG&E puts solar homes on time-of-use billing. On summer weekdays (June through September) the expensive window is 2–7pm, when Oklahoma air conditioners work hardest. Power there runs about 34¢ per kWh all-in. The rest of the time it runs about 9¢. Now lay this window over the production curve above: the roof pours out power right through it.
Hold that overlap in mind. It is the whole point of the next two charts.
Every month on one meter
Every month since the system went live. March out-produced June: spring sun without summer heat derating the panels. The orange slice is production that lands inside the 2–7pm weekday window. It only exists June through September, and it is the production the grid prices highest.
Zoom all the way in: every hour of every day
Pick a month. One cell per hour, darker means more production, all months on one shared scale. The full-height frame keeps 2–7pm visible in every month. Summer weekday cells inside it are shaded because only June through September uses the on-peak window. Rows marked S are weekends.
Weekends turn a clear day’s 45% into about a third of the month’s. Share of production landing in the 2–7pm weekday window, measured: 33.8% in June and 33.8% in July. In July that was 392 of 1,162 kWh, right where the grid prices power highest.
What the meter teaches
Size your system to when you use power, not to your bill total
Here is the part most solar quotes skip. Under OG&E’s billing, a solar kWh is worth what it replaces. Use it yourself and it replaces power you would have bought. Send it to the grid and OG&E buys it back at its avoided cost, a few cents. Same panel, same hour of sun, very different value:
That spread is why two neighbors with the same bill can need very different systems. The right size comes from your hours, and your OG&E bill already shows them:
Home during the day
Working from home, retired, kids home in summer, a pool pump on a timer. Your afternoon power costs ~34¢ and the charts above show solar pouring out exactly then.
A well-sized array replaces your most expensive power directly. Often no battery needed.
Away until evening
Out the door by 8, home after 6. Most of your use is evening and overnight at ~9¢, while the panels produce midday.
Solar still works here, sized honestly. The design leans smaller, and how OG&E nets your midday production against your evening use decides whether a battery earns its cost. We model that from your actual bill.
Adding an EV, a pool, a shop
New load is worth building toward, but match it to the hours it will run. Daytime charging or afternoon AC: more panels cover it.
Panels can’t reach midnight. Overnight charging calls for a battery or a smaller array, not more panels exporting at 4¢.
Your rate, locked
Power from this roof costs about 5.5–10¢ per kWh spread over the system’s life (cash purchase; the range depends on how you value future savings).
That cost is fixed for decades. Every OG&E rate on this page can move. The chart below shows the gap if rates keep climbing the way they have.
Illustration assumes rates rise 5% per year (retail) and 3% (export buy-back). Nobody knows future rates: OG&E’s filings decide them. The solar band is what does not move.
We size from your interval data, not a rule of thumb. Bring a recent OG&E bill and we model your hours against real production data like the months above, then tell you plainly if a smaller system, a battery or no battery is the honest answer.
See how solar production lines up with your home
Compare your recent usage, utility rules and roof before deciding how much solar to install.
Start an Instant ProposalHour-by-hour table (July 27, 2026)
| Hour | kWh | Billing window |
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Where these numbers come from. Production: APsystems meter on a 7.04 kW system near Oklahoma City (sixteen 440 W panels, two south-facing arrays), every hour March 1, 2026 to present, embedded in this page. Production only: no consumption or account data is published.
Billing: OG&E SmartHours with the Net Energy Billing Option. On-peak is 2–7pm weekdays, June–September; all other hours and all winter are off-peak. Rates shown are all-in (base, fuel, riders, taxes) read from billed data: ~34¢ on-peak, ~9¢ off-peak. Export buy-back is OG&E’s avoided cost, roughly 1–4¢. Exact monthly settlement mechanics are being confirmed against a full bill cycle, which is why battery guidance here stays general.
The ~1,640 kWh per kW figure is a pace projected from March–August measurements, not a full measured year. Solar cost of 5.5–10¢/kWh reflects a cash purchase at current pricing over a 30-year life with degradation; financing raises it. Share of production in the on-peak window is measured, not modeled. Updated as new production posts.