Rate plans eligible for buy back in Texas

[Tex Willer]

I am aware of three companies with domestic buy back plans in Texas (DFW, Oncor service area)
- Reliant
- Green Mountain Energy
- TXU

Reliant used to have a time of use plan, where the 9 am - 4 pm rate was 16.2 c/kWh and 9.2 c/kWh otherwise. No extra monthly fees etc. Nice thing was, they paid 16.2 c/kWh for the first generated 500 kWh/month and 5 c/kWh anything over it. It looks that this plan is no longer available and the new plan is worse with a fixed monthly fee, electricity at 11 - 12 c/kWh and credit only about 7 c/kWh.

Green Mountain Energy plan is pretty close to the Reliant plan, buyback at retail rate of about 11 c/kWh but capped at 500 kWh/month, 50% thereafter.

In case of TXU you can pick any plan, they buy back at 7.5 c/kWh with no cap.

My information may in some cases be out of date, any comment or corrections? Are there any new utility companies, in addition to these three, with buy back plans? Which plan you have found best for your case?

[Sunking]

Simple TX is a net energy exporter. There is no reason for a utility to pay retail for electricity when they can buy it for 5-cents from any supplier.

Yes Green Mountain wil pay retail of 11-cent with a cap. But you can buy all you want from Champion Energy or a half dozen more suppliers for less than 8-cents locked in for 3 years. So you pull up to a corner and realize you need gasoline. There are two gas stations. One station sells gas for $2.25/gal today's real price in TX, and the other sells Yankee gas for $5/gal. Which gas station do you buy from?

It is the same with electricity. For a utility to pay you retail means they have to artificially inflate electric rates on everyone to make up for the losses on solar. There is not much of a market in TX for Solar except on the left coast island of Austin.

[Tex Willer]

Quite true, which made me wonder the old Reliant plan in the first place.

Is there any website which would show Texas electricity wholesale prices? Yearly average is probably somewhere around $30/MWh, or has been in 2009, but how much variance there is during summer peak demand? The value of local solar production would be in reducing that peak need, but is there any true impact? ERCOT website seems to have some information, but it doesn't open easily for someone not familiar with the whole market and terminology.

[Sunking]

Is there any website which would show Texas electricity wholesale prices?

That is a moving target. Like any commodity oil, gas, pork bellies, orange juice in TX is sold on a market. You got generators (sellers) offering to distributors (distributors) who are bidding. I don't think the market is visible to the public. Generation cost are on the order of $25 to $40/ Mwh depending on fuel source which puts you in the $30 to $50/Mwh wholesale range. Retail is not quite that fluid. Rates depend on location and available providers. Coops buy on Flat Rate Contract and Resale Flat Rate Contract with the members. In metro areas where deregulation pays off Retailers buy from fixed providers. You kno wof one such team TXU and Oncore. They were one company at one time. TXU is the Generation/Transport arm, and Oncore the distribution to meter provider. You cannot buy electricity from them as a customer even though everything between your electric meter to generator is theirs you cannot buy electricity from them. Its a TX thing.

The retailers have a variety of plans which most are based on 1, 2 and 3 year contracts. Most those range from around 8 cents 3 year, down to 7.5 for 1 year. All the Retailers in TX are middle man shuffling paper. Sounds stupid, utilities hated it at first, then learned the benefit. They did not need all those buildings scattered all through their district with all those money sucking employees that had to deal with the public and all that petty nickle dime accounting and bill collecting for residential services. Now there are hundreds of agent companies to do that, and 99% are all automated with very few employees. They buy from TXU/Oncore who operates and maintains everything and even sends them usage DATA on their customers, and them sells to customer. TXU gets paid in bulk regardless if customer pays or not, agent gets a fee for every account transaction. It actually works pretty good.

Green Mountain as I remember had the best option for solar. As you said retail on first 500 Kwh, retail after 500 Kwh and they set the price to whatever wholesale they feel like. Catch is if you were to just get a regular account from say Champion you can lock in for around 8-cents for first 2000 Kwh then drops to around 7-cents for anything over 2000 Kwh. compared to around 11-cents with Green mountain and paid 8 cents for over 500 Kwh.

[txcas]

After researching this same subject I went with Green Mountain. My system got installed recently so I won't be able to tell you how it is working out for me until Oncor finishes taking their sweet time to process the interconnection agreement application (up to a month), and then wait again for them to reprogram my smart meter for out-bound production (up to three weeks after agreement is signed). So it could be 3-4 months before I see solar credits in my bill. My system was not designed to cover 100% of my usage because there is no net metering in TX. It should offset about 75% of my energy usage; after accumulating credits there will be months where I won't have to pay. In the summer I will have to pay, but a lot less because of the credits and solar production. At first TXU's Free Nights plan sounded great, since the solar panels do not generate at night, but check their ridiculous kWh prices. The less you use the higher the price. When making your decision keep in mind a small detail most seem to forget. Most REPs will charge you a $10 fee if you do not use more than 1,000 kWh in a month. So I could have stayed on my 6-7 cents per kWh plan with Stream Energy, but I was going to be charged an extra $10 every month. Green Mountain's plan seemed to be the perfect balance since there is no $10 fee for using less than 1,000 kWh, and I don't expect to have much more than 500 kWh in solar surplus during the months where I will have a surplus.

[Sunking]

Well with retail rates of 7-cents, Solar in TX is just no real option as there will never be a pay back. Essentially you just took a voluntary rate increase. Electric rates are foretasted to keep going down in TX and have been dropping since 2007. Currently in TX rates are down 50% since 2007. If you use more than 1500-2000 Kwh/month it gets even lower.

[txcas]

Well with retail rates of 7-cents, Solar in TX is just no real option as there will never be a pay back. Essentially you just took a voluntary rate increase. Electric rates are foretasted to keep going down in TX and have been dropping since 2007. Currently in TX rates are down 50% since 2007. If you use more than 1500-2000 Kwh/month it gets even lower.

I am sorry both your math does not add up. I did not build a system to make money of solar energy, I built one to offset 75% of my bill. How can my rate go up when 75% of my energy will be free? The system will pay for itself in 6 years, after that everything is gravy.

[Sunking]

Be ready for nasty surprise coming when NoBama leaves office. In 2016 all mandates end. When that happens any excess you generate will be bought at wholesale rate (5-cents) during the mid day. When you buy it back will be at very high retail rates (13 to 15 cents) when you use the most. Your neighbors will be paying a nice low 8 to 10 cents for all they want. Check your contract. It is only good for two years right? After that contract expires, it will not be offered again. What will really sting is if you ever want to sell your house, solar does not add any value in TX. If you take a loan, you are sunk as you will actually be paying 200 to 300 % more for electricity for the term of your loan (loan payment is your new electric bill). If you try to sell with a solar loan on top of that, you might well be the one writing a check at closing on a upside down mortgage.

[txcas]

Be ready for nasty surprise coming when NoBama leaves office. In 2016 all mandates end. When that happens any excess you generate will be bought at wholesale rate (5-cents) during the mid day. When you buy it back will be at very high retail rates (13 to 15 cents) when you use the most. Your neighbors will be paying a nice low 8 to 10 cents for all they want. Check your contract. It is only good for two years right? After that contract expires, it will not be offered again. What will really sting is if you ever want to sell your house, solar does not add any value in TX. If you take a loan, you are sunk as you will actually be paying 200 to 300 % more for electricity for the term of your loan (loan payment is your new electric bill). If you try to sell with a solar loan on top of that, you might well be the one writing a check at closing on a upside down mortgage.

While you write with authority, your statements are speculative, full of assumptions, and incorrect. There is no Federal law or Executive mandate forcing the REPs to pay or not pay for distributed energy generation. In TX that is controlled by the PUCT not by the Feds. If there was a mandate all REPs would be forced to pay. Only Reliant, TXU, and Green Energy do it in my area out of goodwill, not because they have to. It is a win-win for the them, they get your business and your surplus energy for cheap. There is no 2 year contract with Green Mountain, the plan is month to month. If energy prices in TX go down, so will the Green Mountain rates. I can also switch to any REP at any time with no penalty. My panels were financed with a one year same as cash offer, and they will be paid off in 11 months. During the summer when the AC will be running, all the energy produced by the panels will be consumed and the savings will be significant, even if I not getting paid for the surplus. After the Oncor rebate, the 30% tax credit, and the SunPower rebate I ended up with a 64% discount on the system and only paid $1.36 per watt. The cherry on top is that 90% of my driving is done on electric power, so I will be "filling up" my car for "free."

[Ian S]

While you write with authority, your statements are speculative, full of assumptions, and incorrect.

In other news the sun rose in the east today...

[russ]

While you write with authority, your statements are speculative, full of assumptions, and incorrect. There is no Federal law or Executive mandate forcing the REPs to pay or not pay for distributed energy generation. In TX that is controlled by the PUCT not by the Feds. If there was a mandate all REPs would be forced to pay. Only Reliant, TXU, and Green Energy do it in my area out of goodwill, not because they have to. It is a win-win for the them, they get your business and your surplus energy for cheap. There is no 2 year contract with Green Mountain, the plan is month to month. If energy prices in TX go down, so will the Green Mountain rates. I can also switch to any REP at any time with no penalty. My panels were financed with a one year same as cash offer, and they will be paid off in 11 months. During the summer when the AC will be running, all the energy produced by the panels will be consumed and the savings will be significant, even if I not getting paid for the surplus. After the Oncor rebate, the 30% tax credit, and the SunPower rebate I ended up with a 64% discount on the system and only paid $1.36 per watt. The cherry on top is that 90% of my driving is done on electric power, so I will be "filling up" my car for "free."

All states have their own PUC or whatever it is called that sets rates - some political and some not.

The reason you are so happy with your deal is that your neighbors and poor people are paying for it.

[txcas]

All states have their own PUC or whatever it is called that sets rates - some political and some not.

The reason you are so happy with your deal is that your neighbors and poor people are paying for it.

Seriously? If my neighbors and poor people were paying for it, I would have installed a larger system. Every penny used to pay for this system came from private company rebates, and from my pocket. The 30% federal tax credit is actually a refund on the taxes I paid, not on the taxes you or my poor neighbors paid. But let stay on topic...

[russ]

Seriously? If my neighbors and poor people were paying for it, I would have installed a larger system. Every penny used to pay for this system came from private company rebates, and from my pocket. The 30% federal tax credit is actually a refund on the taxes I paid, not on the taxes you or my poor neighbors paid. But let stay on topic...

Who do you think pays for the rebates, incentives and all? This is on topic - just that "progressive" types don't like it when someone points out they have their hand in the cash register. I have heard of weak justifications but your takes the cake!

[SunEagle]

I am sorry both your math does not add up. I did not build a system to make money of solar energy, I built one to offset 75% of my bill. How can my rate go up when 75% of my energy will be free? The system will pay for itself in 6 years, after that everything is gravy.

It doesn't matter if you can offset 75% of your energy usage, your rates can still go up because the POCO can ask the PSC and get changes made to the billing.

A number of POCO's are now billing people with a grid tie solar system a fixed $ amount per month based on their installed kw. Other POCO's are working on reducing the amount they pay you for your kWh generation which is way below true Net metering.

Sure your bill will be less if you generate a % of own power but what you do purchase from the POCO might cost more (per kWh and fixed costs) just because you are a "co-generator".

Based on today's prices your system may pay for itself in 6 years but all that can change in 2 years and the direction from the POCO's are to find ways to charge more to the people that compete with them.

[txcas]

It doesn't matter if you can offset 75% of your energy usage, your rates can still go up because the POCO can ask the PSC and get changes made to the billing.

A number of POCO's are now billing people with a grid tie solar system a fixed $ amount per month based on their installed kw. Other POCO's are working on reducing the amount they pay you for your kWh generation which is way below true Net metering.

Sure your bill will be less if you generate a % of own power but what you do purchase from the POCO might cost more (per kWh and fixed costs) just because you are a "co-generator".

Based on today's prices your system may pay for itself in 6 years but all that can change in 2 years and the direction from the POCO's are to find ways to charge more to the people that compete with them.

Exactly! The bill will be less no matter what, the moving scale is the time it will take for the system to pay for itself. Like you stated, base on today's figures that is in 6 years. That can go up or down based on the market conditions, but based on historical data that figure is not expected to change much. Finally someone with common sense on this forum.