Frequently asked questions

Yes, and the reason is the rate. You produce your own electricity at a fixed cost per kilowatt-hour that sits under Flathead Electric’s rate, which went up again in June 2026, and it stays there while theirs keeps climbing. Once the system is paid off, the power it makes is free. The federal residential credit ended for systems placed in service after 2025; the state’s 3.5 percent AERLP loan and the ten-year property tax exemption still stand.

Every system is a custom design for one property, sized to a full year of what it uses, so there is no starting price to quote. The proposal carries the real number, the production numbers, and the payback, and the electricity a system makes costs less per kilowatt-hour than the utility’s. Most people pay with the state’s low-interest AERLP loan or Clearwater Credit Union’s solar loan, so the bill they already pay becomes the payment on something they own.

No. If the building is on the grid, your utility credits what you send back and covers the night. Batteries are for the day the line goes down: the well, the freezer, and the heat keep running on their own. Every system we build is set up to add them later.

The way the utility credits you for power your panels send to the grid. When the system makes more than the house uses, the extra goes out and comes back as a credit, so you pay only for what you use beyond what the panels make over the year. Flathead Electric sets its own terms as a member co-op, and we size the system with them in mind.

The number of years until the system has saved you what it cost. It depends on your usage, your roof or ground, and the utility’s rate, so it is different for every property, and the proposal states it plainly. After payback, every kilowatt-hour is free, and the system keeps producing for decades.

Snow slides off a pitched array as the panels warm after a storm, and takes the dust with it. Rain does the rest. More than a hundred of our systems have been through valley winters, and every one was sized on the whole year, so December is in the math from the start.

Panels produce best in bright sun and still produce on grey days. A Whitefish roof makes about three times more in July than in December, and the design expects that.

Panels turn sunlight into electricity with no moving parts. An Enphase microinverter under each panel turns it into the power your house uses, so each panel works on its own and the system is ready for a battery whenever you want one.

Curran, Thomas and their own crew. They design the system, install it, and answer the phone about it in ten years. Northstone has put in more than a hundred systems between the North Fork and Libby since 2017, every Google review is five stars, and labor and every piece of equipment carry a warranty.